The Benefits Of Being A Nobody
by TheRealDreadPirateRoberts
Summary: Juniper Baronet was stripped of a name, home, and identity after he suffered a traumatic brain injury that left him amnesiac and barely grasping at life. However, the accident that made him lose his memory maybe wasn't that accidental. Now, struggling to regain life as he once knew it, Juniper needs to choose between two worlds, to return to the shadows, or to live in the sunlight.
1. Chapter 1: Merlot

**Chapter 1: Merlot**

**Dr. Wardarc's POV**

**22:16, Wednesday, November 13**

**Washington, D.C.**

This was tedious.

I swiveled back and forth in the chair, my eyes scanning over the article. It was well written, sure, but God did it absolutely reek of...imitation. Almost like a bad fan fiction. There were bits of it that sounded straight out of a soap opera.

Sighing, I sat up, and looked the intern in the eyes. He puffed out his chest, the poor thing, like a rooster does to impress a hen. Actually, most of his did look like a rooster. His cropped, spiky hair gelled to stick up almost vertically. His sharp, beaklike nose. His oddly skinny legs.

I lean forwards, planting my elbows on the desk, "Well hon, I certainly loved the article."

"Y-you really did?"

_Lord, even his voice fits the rooster theme_, I thought, trying not to cringe. "Yes. It was great. But I don't really think you're right for this job. Thank you anyways for trying out for the position." I passed the tablet over the desk to him, but instead of taking it, he sat there, shell shocked, staring at the glowing screen.

"B-b-but I don-don't understand." He stumbled to find what to say, staring at his own work in front of him with the look of a student who had just gotten a bad grade on the essay they work really hard on.

"It feels too…" I waved my hands around, sort of exaggerating. "Fictional. You seem more like a creative writer than a journalist. No offense though, it was still good. Just not how I wanted it to be."

He looked even more confused than before, "Ma'am, when you asked me to write a fake article, I assumed you wanted me to write it for some kind of narrative piece," his eyes widened, "Y-you're not going to publish it or something, are you?"

"Look," I put my hands on his, smiling a bit, "you're a really sweet kid. You seem genuine, reliable. The kind of kid you would want as a friend in high school. But this isn't high school, hon. If you want to make it in the real world, you need to know something about adults.

"We lie. We fight. We're more than what you want to see us as. We're people too, you know, just trying to make it in the world. Now that you're a member of this adult world, you need to be able to lie and fight as well. This is your training for that, young man," I leaned back in the chair, appearing to be more relaxed, but keeping my spine up straight for the proper posture. "So you should really be thanking me for rejecting you."

He shook his head, the little brat. He looked...angry.

_Aww, so it does have a backbone,_ I thought, almost laughing. He looked kind of like a pitbull puppy, thinking he's more tough that he actually is.

"Ma'am, I need to report you to the police if you're writing fake news and publishing it. This is so far out of the boundaries of 'okay'."

This time I did laugh. Loudly, so hard that it made my throat close up. I coughed a bit, before taking the handkerchief out from the inside of my blazer and wiping my now teary eyes with it. "Oh, oh, you're too much. The police? Wow, so scary." I kept laughing, unable to contain it, hardly even hearing him repeat the law against fake news back to me (which he'd apparently had memorized).

I sat up, shaking my head. "Hon, you actually think that I _wouldn't_ have the police on my side? You do know who I am, right?"

He nodded. "Dr. Wardarc, Head of the Department of Bioengineering and Mutations at the Earth Protection Force. But that doesn't mean spreading lies about mutants is okay."

"Ah, but it is," I said, standing up and walking over to the wine rack. "Would you care for some merlot? It's imported from _Bordeaux_."

He was quivering with anger now, "How are you so calm? How do you do it?!"

I took a wine glass off the wall, completely ignoring the question. "Colin, isn't it? A nice name. When I was little, there was a boy in my Sunday school named Colin," I laughed remembering the story. "My mother - she taught that specific class, but most of the time she was a full time pastor - she called him 'Colon' because that's how his name was spelled. My mother always used to say 'that boy's name is spelled so wrong!'."

Smiling, I handed him a delicate crystal glass, before pouring the shiny, ink like substance into his cup, "My mother was a pastor, my father was a police officer. They were both extremely successful in life, and they had high expectations for me."

I put an arm around Colin, but instead of shying away from me (the smarter thing to do), he simply watched, unsure of how to react, but listening, waiting for his moment to act, "When they died, I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I knew I wanted to impact the world, to help it, in the way they always wanted to but never could.

"And then I realized, Colin: mutants. They were everywhere, even when I was a young girl, but especially now, especially when they're in the spotlight. Everybody's always known about them, but nobody wanted to talk about them until now. With the recent invasions, especially the three month long invasion that ended back last April, the tensions have been higher than ever.

"New York needs our help. They're too distraught to sort themselves out on their own, so they need our help. Especially the more interesting part of their population. And _we_ are going to help them. _You_, however, are not going to take part in that, apparently," I sipped the wine, looking at him with clear disappointment.

"So Colin, I would like you to understand that when writing those articles, we are not spreading lies. We are doing what is best for our country."

"B-but that's not okay. That's not what's right. This isn't what's best for the country."

I sipped the merlot, before looking down on the short man and pressed nailed fingers to his mouth, "Shh, we don't want to make a scene, do we?"

He yanked himself away, staring at me with disgust and disbelief. I did the same thing as I pursed my lips with distaste. Something about this _boy_ put a repulsive taste in my mouth.

"Colin, do you support mutant rights?"

"Of course! We need to embrace change for this country to work properly!" His roostery voice screeched.

"Then why did you take on the job to write the article?" I cock my hip to the side, swirling the wine inside it's exquisite glass.

His pudgy face went bright red, his arms crossing like an animal trying to protect it's inners from a predator. "I needed the money. With all the eBooks and stuff, there's not a lot for someone to do with an English major."

"First of all, that's your mistake," I mused, coming closer to him. His lips quivered, and he backed himself closer to the door. "Second of all, let's give you a question, a real philosophical one for a real philosophical person - I assume you must be, you majored in English - ; there's a train coming, and on either side of the fork in the tracks, there's always someone blocking it. On one side is ten mutants, and on the other, one human man."

"Why can't they get off the tracks?"

I swipe my hand through the air and roll my eyes, "That's besides the point. Their feet are glued down, or whatever. Anyways, the question is, which do you save, and which do you sacrifice?"

"Well...I'd probably save the ten mutants. I know, it's wrong either way, but saving the ten mutants makes it so there are less lives lost."

I nodded, slowly, processing the thoughts running through my head. _Foul. Absolutely foul, the things that are going on these days. What are they teaching these kids to make them think that mutants are even half the worth of humans?_

"Um...Dr. Wardarc...you're kind of confusing me."

My back straightened, and I gave a small smile to Colin. "That's sort of the point, Colin. Well, I can now see that you're officially a mutant sympathizer. I suppose it's all up to opinion, then. You said you needed the money? Are you in debt?"

"Well, that's kind of a hard question to answer…" he trailed off, looking at the ground.

"I can make it so you don't have to pay that debt, Colin." I extended one hand, exposing teeth in my smile now.

"R-really?" He looked up, quirking an eyebrow. "But you seemed so adamantly against me just a couple seconds ago...why would you pay off the debts for me?"

Hysterical laughter followed. From me, of course, not Colin. What a ridiculous thought.

I wiped tears from my eyes, before taking a large swig from the merlot in my hand. "Young man, did you actually think I was going to pay your debt for you?"

"B-but you said-"

When I snapped my fingers, the door flew open, and a pair of armed guards crowded into the tiny, rectangular space, severely out of place in the rustic style of my office.

"Guards, take him to the Drawing Board," I gestured to Colin, and gave him one last smile. "Prepare yourself, young man."

"Hold up, hold up, what's going on?" Colin's face turned this weird shade of shamrock green, his hands going bright red as the blood flow was cut off by the rough pair of hands on each wrist.

"Well, if you love mutants so much, why don't you become one?" I asked, shrugging and turning away, hoping to never see him again. If I did, I might've felt guilty. And Lord knows how much of a disaster mutant sympathizing is.

"Wh...NO! No, please, Dr. Wardarc, you don't need to do this! Please! I have a life, you can't take that from me!"

As the blood curdling screams faded down the hall, the merlot in my glass looked even more like blood.

And yet, I still drank it.

oOoOoOoOo

**Yee, cliffhangers. I love me some mystery, don't you? Especially when the author doesn't explain anything whatsoever (lol). **

**Now, some context. Part 1: **

**I have another account, with stories that are full of slightly cringey stuff. It hasn't been updated since August of 2018, so yeah, I made a new one. However, I kept some of my old OC's from those stories, only I changed several of their personalities, as well as most things about them in general, as one of them (cough cough Vanessa cough cough) started out as a blatant self insert. I decided to give her some more depth, some more originality, and some more interesting characteristics, so she isn't a carbon copy or an improved version of myself, like she originally was. **

**So if you do happen to stumble across my old account, 1) I'm sorry you had to see that and 2) No, that was not another author copying from me, and I am not copying from them. I dare not say the account name, but Vanessa and Bridget and all those OC's and stuff are my own characters, not something I stole. (Also shout out to my older sister LunaOdin1234 I love u gurl y'all gotta go read her stories right now)**

**Tbh, you'll probably find my other account through her old stories (*whispers* **_**I've given myself away**_**). **

**Part 2: **

**I deeply understand that retrograde amnesia is something people do actually struggle with, as well as seizures, and other medical issues I may mention throughout the story. I've done the research, and I have somewhat of an understanding of how most of it works (though this is science fiction, so some of the rules might bend), and if any of you think I may have misrepresented something in this story, please reach out to me through the reviews, and I'll fix it if I can, though most of the story does revolve around this issue. **

**Part 3: **

**Amnesia is usually seen as a trope, or a plot device for cheap drama, because that's what it is very often. It's customarily very obvious to the amnesiac is, but I'll try to keep it as vague as possible (lol you've probably already figured it out). However, I don't want amnesia to be simply a trope people are getting tired of. In fact, that's probably the main reason most won't be drawn to this story. Amnesia has been a common place plot device too many times, and it's gotten old. But despite this, amnesia has always triggered my attention, and this has been a story I've deeply wanted to publish for the past two years (that's literally how long I've had this story in my head, I just haven't gotten it out since). I originally created it as a story for a different fandom, before I realized how perfectly it worked with TMNT, so I decided you guys would be my target audience. And for that, I deeply thank you as well. I really hope you enjoy 'The Benefits of Being a Nobody', as it's my literal pride and joy. **

**I deeply apologize for the very long outro (this took me way too long to write). I hope they won't have to be this long in the future. If you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	2. Texts: A Prelude

**Texts: A Prelude**

**22:15, Sunday, May 11**

**San Diego, CA**

_Poeu, 22:15: juniper_

_Poeu, 22:15: omg juniper are u ok_

_Poeu, 22:16: june plz answer me_

_Vanessa, 22:16: Wait, what's wrong?_

_Poeu, 22:17: jboi had a stroke again_

_Vanessa, 22:17: You mean seizure, correct? Because if he had a stroke that would be in an entirely different ballpark. _

_Poeu, 22:17: same dif_

_Vanessa, 22:17: Actually, it's a very big difference. _

_Vanessa, 22:18: And now I'll just be stuck here assuming I'm correct. _

_Vanessa, 22:19: June, are you okay? _

_Vanessa, 22:19: Are you awake?_

_Poeu, 22:19: r u dead?_

_Vanessa, 22:20: Don't be ridiculous, Poeu, if he were dead he wouldn't be able to answer these texts. _

_Poeu, 22:20: he hasn't doe_

_Vanessa, 22:21: Shut up. _

_Vanessa, 22:24:..._

_Vanessa, 22:29: Okay, are you actually dead, Juniper? Because you're really scaring me. _

_Alice, 22:30: Have you ever considered the possibility he may not be allowed to have his phone in the hospital _

_Alice, 22:31: You know, because it could induce seizures cuz flashing lights and stuff? idk?_

_Vanessa, 22:31: Egads Alice, for a second I thought you were Juniper. You got me all excited. _

_Poeu, 22:32: j i love you_

_Poeu, 22:32: don't u dare die on me_

_Poeu, 22:33: ill sue_

_Poeu, 22:33: juju berrynet you are my true home beach_

_Poeu, 22:35: ur my only friend_

_Alice, 22:36: Wait what are we_

_Poeu, 22:36: my backup dancers_

_Vanessa, 22:36: Guys, please stop texting me, it's my bedtime._

_Alice, 22:38: Jeez live a little Ness_

_Vanessa, 22:38: I have an AP Euro test tomorrow and I need to be ready. _

_Poeu, 22:40: o frick wait school exists_

_Poeu, 22:40: frick_

_Poeu, 22:40: j now i need you to live so i can copy your chem hw_

_Alice, 22:41: Don't disrespect the dead lol_

_Vanessa, 22:41: 1st, we don't know if he's dead. 2nd, I need sleep, so stop texting me. _

_Alice, 22:42: Lol guys it's just a joke_

_Alice, 22:43:..._

_Alice, 22:44: I thought it was funny_

_Juniper, 22:47: It really wasn't _

_Poeu, 22:47: good lord kid you scared us_

_Alice, 22:48: Hey there June. They got your phone locked up over at the hospital cuz of the seizure?_

_Juniper, 22:50: Yeah no, my sister was playing Minecraft on my phone and wouldn't give it back_

_Alice, 22:51: Oh lol_

_Poeu, 22:51: j quick why was hammburo important_

_Poeu, 22:52: *hammurabi, sorry_

_Alice, 22:53: Hey don't pressure him his head probably hurts_

_Juniper, 22:54: I'm actually feeling pretty good_

_Juniper, 22:54: But I'm not allowed to go to school tomorrow_

_Vanessa, 22:55: Guys stop we have school tomorrow. _

_Vanessa, 22:56: EGADS! J! You're okay!_

_Juniper, 22:59: Yeah, thanks, V. _

_Juniper, 23:08: Okay sorry guys doctors say I'm not allowed to text you guys right now. _

_Juniper, 23:08: Sorry. _

_Poeu, 23:09: wut about hammurabi?_

_Juniper, 23:11: Sorry bro, I don't have the brain capacity at the moment. Thank you for your support though. Love you too. Good luck on your test!_

_Poeu, 23:11:..._

_Poeu, 23:14: frick_

_Alice, 23:14: what_

_Poeu, 23:14: i gon die_

oOoOoOoOo

**A/N: The real next chapter is right next door. **


	3. Chapter 2: Homesick

**Chapter 2: Homesick**

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**8:52, Monday, May 12**

**San Diego, CA**

I knew I would be kept home from school.

But that didn't stop me from feeling a small pang of disappointment when I opened my eyes to extreme sunlight hitting my bedroom floor in gorgeous beams of light, making the tiny bits of dust sifting through the air look like magic in the luminosity. Quite a wonderful sight, but it's just not as enlivening an experience as an alarm clock screaming in your ear.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes with one hand. As I did so, my service dog, Lucky, sat up and started licking my neck and the bottom of my face. She had been perched right next to my bed, watching over to make sure I didn't have another seizure.

Wrapping my arms around her, I suddenly found that I was swimming in her feathery, golden blonde fur as she leapt up onto my bed, and laughing into her chest as she continued to bathe my face in her sticky dog slob.

"I know, I know girl. I'm good. You kinda saved me last night." I scratched behind her ears, and she gave me a ridiculous puppy grin in response. "Thanks, hon."

You see, Lucky, before we even got her, was already trained to detect and respond to things like epileptic seizures, and even though I don't have epilepsy, she's the best thing for me. The thing is, I don't really know why I have seizures. I just kind of do. I don't know why. Even though I take Phenytoin three times every day, just like the doctors tell me, and I still have them. Frequently.

Anyways, Lucky can do stuff like break my fall when I have seizures so I don't hit my head on the floor, or bark for help, or even do stuff like try and tell me before I even _have_ the seizure by doing things like licking my hand excessively, or by pacing back and forth. I get stressed out whenever she starts barking at me to let her outside or something, because it's hard to tell if she needs something, or if I'm going to be put in a life threatening situation.

Yeah. That's kinda my life. Not sure why it became my life, but it is.

I swung my legs out of bed to grab my slippers before noticing that Lucky had already fetched them for me...and torn out a bit of the inside stuffing in the left one. A mild discomfort, but nothing too bad. Better than being in the hospital by far. Every time I go there, I despise it even more.

Another thing I noticed: a small note left at my nightstand. In messy scrawl in the front, with little ink scribbles from someone testing out pens on the front.

_Dear __Ja_ _Junipee_ _Juniper (sorry little man I'm tired)_

I chuckled before opening the lined paper and reading the sentences she had written there (as there is only one person in the entire world who calls me little man).

_Hey. I'm really sorry about last night. I know you hate when that kind of stuff happens, for a good reason. It's scary and weird. __I hate it too (I hate it because you're in danger not because of you or anything I promise hon __things are going to get better. I can promise you that. I have a really important health inspector guy coming here today to make sure the leaky roof at the shop is fixed, but I promise I'll come home as soon as I can. Mom will spend the day with you, okay? _

_P.S. ask her to call me if we need anything for the tacos tonight because I'm really oblivious to that kinda stuff_

_-Tabby_

Despite my initial disappointment at waking up, the note from Tabetha made it a little bit better. I smiled, setting it back down onto the small table, and got to my feet.

As soon as I did so, all of the blood rushed to my brain, small colorful spots dancing before my eyes, a hazy black cloud making my head spin. I grabbed my head, clamping my palms over my ears, and took deep breaths, listening only to the sound of my blood rushing through my head.

The tremors of the stairs as someone clomped up them caught my attention, the quivering of the wood underneath the weight of a human being growing louder as they ascended the stairs. I opened my eyes again just as the door opened, trying not to feel embarrassed at collapsing from the unforeseen migraine.

One of my adoptive mothers, Erica, slipped in through the crack between the door and its frame, her slim physique probably able to fit through anything. She smiled at me, grey-blue eyes twinkling in the sunlight.

"Good morning, Doll," she said, her always tender voice barely above a whisper. "I thought I heard you talking up here." She sat herself down on the side of my bed, her face glowing as she lifted one slim, long-fingered hand, brushing a lock of my hair out of my face. "Are you feeling okay? You don't seem very happy."

"Yeah," I responded, sitting with my legs crossed so I could rest my elbows on my knees. "It just sucks that I can't go to school today."

She laughed suddenly, a high pitched laugh that sounds kind of like the bark of a tiny chihuahua. When I had first heard it, it had scared me out of my wits with its element of surprise. Now I know though, that's just the way she laughs. Sure, not the prettiest laugh ever, but it makes me smile to know that something makes my mom happy.

"You're adorable," she said, pulling her legs up onto the bed and rubbing Lucky on her chin when the Golden Retriever went over for kisses. "Most kids would be overjoyed to stay home from school. But not you." When she saw my obvious disappointment, Erica lifted my chin up with her hand, so I could see her instead of just staring at the ground. "Hey. Don't be sad. It's just one day out of many. You won't miss a thing."

To her, maybe it was just one day. To me though, every day mattered, because every day was different. Every day in my life had something that I could _remember_. There was no such thing as just a day.

When I first woke up in the hospital in December, I had absolutely no recollection of anything. Literally, nothing. I might as well have not existed.

Erica matters just as much as the world itself to me. She took me in as her own son, letting me live in her and her wife Tabetha's home and be a part of their family, helping me navigate the rocky parts of my life. Before I met her, I was a nameless shell of a person. When she helped me decide on the name 'Juniper', I cannot tell you how _thrilled_ I was to be a part of something, to exist in other people's eyes. I wasn't just the kid with no name, the sick, ignorant boy who can't figure out the world, child that no parent bothered to come for. I was Juniper Azure Baronet. It's absolutely wonderful.

Mom slid off the end of my bed, her head cocked to the side as she started to explain the same rules she had for every one of my 'incidents'. Her boho skirt swept around her ankles, and her platinum blonde hair tickled her face as she moved her head.

"Alright Juju, it may just be another day, but you've gotta take it easy today. And tomorrow."

I sat up forwards, making Lucky jump to attention. She started to chew on my sock, as if she were asking 'hey, you alright?'. But I hardly noticed.

"I don't have to stay home from school tomorrow?"

"No, you don't. But I don't want you to do anything after school. So that means no going to the mall, no going to the skate park, and especially, _especially_, no surfing. Hey, don't give me that look; if you have a seizure out in the water, there's no way anybody will be able to get to you in time, do you understand?" She pointed one long-nailed finger at me as I started to protest, raising her thin eyebrows in a questioning manner.

I nodded obediently, pulling my sock out of Lucky's mouth and slouching back down again. "Alright. But I have work after school on Wednesday, I can't miss that."

"I know. I won't make you. And you're not allowed to go outside today. Can you tell me why?"

I repeated the usual response, nodding as I did so. "The heat can make me dizzy."

Mom smiled as she started to leave the room, as if she were trying to let this moment sink in, like a computer does to store memories in a flash drive. "You're a trooper, you know that Doll?"

I beamed at Erica's nickname being used once more, before giving her a half-hearted nod as the door closed.

Silence filled the room and, despite the California heat outside, it felt cold and empty with me alone there.

Lucky lapped my face with another slobbery puppy kiss. _Okay. Almost alone._

I tested out my legs, getting out of bed again, praying to not get another migraine. I needed fresh air. Just for a second.

My half-chewed slipper kind of squelched oddly as I walked, but I didn't really mind. I made my way over to the window, locked up tight. As you may have noticed before, Mom wanted me to be completely inside the day after a seizure. She was obsessed with it, almost. She said it was for my safety. That meant no opening windows or anything. But that didn't matter at the moment. Sure, sunlight filtered through, but the brightness wasn't enough to satisfy my hunger for the outdoors. I flicked the notch, and pushed the window up, smelling the earthy scent of morning. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Shadows licked the patio below, cicadas buzzed in the palm trees, and the distant aroma of the Pacific Ocean lingered in my backyard. A pretty perfect day, if you ask me.

The ocean. That reminded me of something.

A dream. I had a dream last night. I'd been too disoriented to realize it right away, but it was the same dream as last time I had a seizure. And the time before that. And the time before...

Lucky pushed my elbow out of the way, her tongue sticking out like she was in a car, leaning her head out next to mine. She glanced at me, then looked back outside, smelling the air.

I shook myself out of the trance of the natural world, before slamming the window shut and hoping that Erica's hadn't heard me from down below.

"Yeah, I know girl. But we gotta stay inside today."

Lucky gave me a disappointed look as I did so, pouting and tilting her head to the side.

I shrugged and grabbed a book from the shelf next to my bed, before sitting back down and cracking it open to the page I had been on. "Hey, I know, I want to go out too. But don't worry. It's for my own good. Trust me, Erica knows best."

oOoOoOoOo

**A/N: Hey all, sorry for the really short chapter. Even I'm not satisfied by the length, and I'm the author, but I thought this felt like a natural place to end it. I know, there are so many plot holes and loose threads to tie up, but I'll get to them eventually. Like I said, I've had a while to plan this fanfiction. Also, I got to introduce you to our main character (Juniper, and yes, I now, that's frequently a girl's name, but roll with it), and one of my personal favorite characters, Erica (I just find motherly characters so fun to write)! Thank you all so much for reading, and thanks especially to the very kind Guest who left a review. It helps inspire me to keep writing, which has been tough with writer's block, and some really serious scheduling issues, which, face it, we all have. Anyways, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	4. Chapter 3: Muse

**Chapter 3: Muse**

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**20:54, Monday, May 12**

**San Diego, California**

Turns out, we did need stuff for tacos. And me, being my usual self, I totally forgot to tell Tabs. However, she didn't seem to mind very much.

"Tortillas don't even really matter, little man," She was dumping all of her stuff on the couch as she said it (despite Erica telling her to please hang her stuff on the hooks next to the door), kicking her sneakers off with wild movements of her feet, not bothering to untie the frayed laces.

We both heard Erica rummaging through the cupboard as we spoke, boxes being pushed and falling over. "Yeah, and I think we have hard taco shells anyways."

Tabs shrugged and looked at me, a small smirk on her face. "See? Don't cry over milk that wasn't even spilled yet, kiddo." Her long, sunkissed, brunette hair glistened like pearls in the light of the living room, framing her deeply tanned face in a loose ponytail. Her skin up to her elbows was covered in olive green and midnight blue and every shade of pink imaginable, with tiny flecks of glaze on her chin and in her messy hair. Tabs owns a small pottery shop just Northeast of the University. You may have heard of it. It's right across from that old, run down Chinese food place. Ever since that bad earthquake in mid April, the pipes in the ceiling have been sort of leaky (after basically falling apart during the earthquake), and today was the day they were finally inspecting them and telling her what was wrong. Up until then, she'd just been using some of her older, 'less favorite' works to carry the water in.

"They said it's fine to keep it open. I mean, we knew they'd say that. I wasn't even worried. It's just one of those things they make you do." She was desperately trying to stab a plastic straw into a small container of apple juice that Erica had bought for one of my little sisters, struggling greatly with the very simple task.

"...you want help?"

Tabs had simply gone into the kitchen without responding, frustrated with herself (and possibly whatever company made that container of apple juice).

Once dinner was over, I sat down in my office chair, its wheels spinning everywhere every time I made a slight movement. It was way too quiet in here. Maybe it was because my little sisters had fallen asleep. Maybe it was because Lucky was downstairs. But whatever it was, the house had a sort of deafening silence that crushed even the noise outside the house.

A small, new addition to my desk had caught my attention. Opal made me a stick figure at school. Literally. It was made of sticks.

A bundle of purple popsicle sticks had been stuck together with Elmer's glue, green pipe cleaners cut short to be hair. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be me or not. Opal doesn't really answer questions. She just asks them.

Part of the reason it's so astonishing that Erica and Tabetha decided to take in me, a _teenager_, is because of their otherwise very limited parenting experience. Their two daughters, Sunshine and Opal (my moms are hippies, nature names are only part of the package), were five and seven. I'm over double that age- well, allegedly. We don't know how old I am. The doctors guessed about seventeen, meaning I'd be in my junior year of high school, but for all I know, I could be much younger. Or much older. I really hope I'm not like, nineteen, or something. Then I'd have to graduate high school twice. Unless I never did a first time, which means that I was a failure in my past life, and that means I'm _still_ a failure…

Sorry.

I don't like to think about who I was before I was Juniper. The thought of a completely different person, with a completely different name and personality, living a completely different life, scares me. It didn't matter if he was good or bad, he was a different human being living in my body. And that's not very okay.

The idea was starting to give me a migraine. I laid down on my bed, gently setting down the popsicle man as I did so, sinking into the soft, knit brown and gold blankets beneath me, and pulled my feet up behind me. Every second just dragged as the day went on, the clock taking an eon in between every _tick_, time itself taking too long of breaks in the vast void of the universe we live in.

_Well, make that the umpteenth time my headache has grown,_ I thought, rolling onto my side and covering my ears as the pain in my head started to swell. _See, look where this thought spiral lead you, you failure._

I thought back to what Dr. A had told me about thought spirals. His walls lined with books of psychiatry and mental illness, his beige leather couch that even the plastic chairs at school were softer than, and the air conditioner turned up way too high, like it always was.

His long, black hair had been tied in a short ponytail when he told me this, the top button of his button down shirt undone. He'd been scribbling something down on his clipboard with his favorite green pen, before looking up and talking to me in that critical tone of his.

_Juniper, your thoughts seem to wander very often. _

_You mean I have a short attention span?_ I had asked, raising my eyebrows. I didn't believe him very much. Sure, he was the one professionally trained in psychiatry, but this was my head we were talking about, and I know that much better than anyone.

_No, no, of course not,_ he'd said, waving his hand about as he shook his head. _Clearly, you're the kind of young man who focuses very hard on something. No, Juniper, I mean that they spiral. Do you know what I mean by spiral?_

I thought for a bit, before nodding. _Like a slinky?_

_Yes, exactly like a slinky. In fact, here..._he reached behind him to pull something out, before grabbing a thin piece of corkscrewed metal from behind him, and stretched it out between his hands, like he was playing an accordian. _Here. Your thoughts, from what you're telling me, seem to spiral down into other thoughts, ones that you don't intend to come to your head, ones that you seem to be actively trying to block. Things like who you might've been in the past, or what the people you knew in the past would think of you now._

I had nodded, but I was slightly uncomfortable that he had brought it up in the first place, when I obviously didn't want to think about stuff like that. Then again, in the beginning, everything made me a bit uncomfortable.

_Now, in case you're ever in a thought spiral and it's giving you a headache, I would suggest trying to think of something else, something entirely unrelated to the issue at hand. If you ever find a way to connect the two of them together, find something physically that can help you..._he let go of the slinky, letting a bounce around. I jumped back, already quite tense with the conversation at hand already.

_Let it go._

I thought for a minute, before looking up at him. _Dr. Al-Hathi, wouldn't a good solution to be just not to think at all?_

Dr. A laughed, before putting a hand on my knee. _No, no, Juniper. That's impossible._

The spiral was roaring inside my head like a machine gun into the silence of the house, accentuating every noise and making it sound a billion times louder than it actually is. The water falling in the shower downstairs. The cicadas ripping through the silence like a chainsaw. The delicate tapping on the glass panes of my window.

Wait a second.

I sat up on my bed, turning to the window.

Outlined by the night behind her and lit up by the hanging fairy lights of my room, was Alice.

Alice's hair was fastened out of her face with a series of thin bobby pins that glinted in a magical way, her long, silky, midnight shaded locks framing her pale face. Her silver owl-like irises twinkled with anticipation and mystery, as she rapped her fingers on the window one by one. Her eyes crinkled as she smiled, tiny dimples appearing in her cheeks like little craters of the blank white moon, surrounded by entirely dark space.

I stood, running my fingers through my hair tiredly. She waved, as if I hadn't noticed her perched outside my window like a pixie. As I flipped the lock on the window, Alice slid one leg inside, the cool night air rushing in as her combat boot clunked against the hardwood flooring.

She cocked her mouth in a small smile, her lips tightly pressed together. "Well well well, Juju's being bad and cutting school today."

"It's not like I _wanted_ to stay home," I said, though my words came out slurred and bumpy as she entered my bedroom, wrapping her sweatshirt around herself (the zipper had broken long ago, leaving Alice to simply hold it in place).

"Oh, I'm sure you didn't," she said, running her fingers playfully along the edge of my dresser, skipping over the small rivets in the wood like a child hopping over puddles. "I bet missing a class as fun as Pre-Calculus was absolutely killing you."

"Speaking of which," she dug among the pages of the sketchbook she always carried around, biting down on her bottom lip with her somewhat large front teeth. Stuffed in the book was everything from Starbucks receipts, to Driver's-Ed papers, to notes we had scribbled on the back of graph paper to each other in between classes right next to her locker.

Eventually, a crumpled sheet of papers fell out, which she forked over, smiling as she did so. "I've got your homework. I mean, Vanessa went around collecting it for you, but I'm the one bringing it to you so…" She fidgeted awkwardly for a second, and a wave of heat crept up in my cheeks as I realized how disheveled I probably looked.

"Thanks Al," I said, taking the papers with a probably dopey-looking forced grin, before sitting back down on the bed. "But I really have to wait until tomorrow to do all this. I've got a really bad migraine."

Now it was her turn to blush. "Oh. Okay. I could go if you want me to."

"No, no," I shouted the words before I could even tell I was saying them. We waited for a second in silence, both equally uncomfortable, waiting to see if we had alerted either of the adults downstairs. As we realized Alice's breaking and entering had not been detected, we let out a sigh of relief, before I continued.

"Please," I muttered, my cheeks hot red by this point. "I want you to stay."

Alice's face lit up, her chest swelling out with a sort of pride, as she pulled a pencil out from her sweatshirt pocket. "Then you don't mind if I draw you? I've been looking for a muse for ages."

"Oh," I said, kicking my bare feet against each other like a small gold weights on a pendulum. "I'm no muse."

"Of course you are. Anything can be a muse if you let it happen. Just act natural," she advised, relaxing in my desk chair, her pleated skirt bouncing up as she did so. I looked away as she sat down, averting my eyes and fingering the small stud earring in my left ear to distract myself. The small grooves of the sea shell earring were calming, like the waves of the Pacific, weaving surfboards up and down, up and down. I closed my eyes, the thoughts of the ocean relieving my headache slightly. Seagulls screeching (children also screeching), the heated wood of the boardwalk, the chill of the ocean when you go too far down...and the sand that greets you at the bottom, spiraling endlessly when you kick it up, a violent storm in my near peaceful thoughts.

When I opened my eyes, the chill was now from the air conditioner, the spiral continued, and Alice was flipping through the leather bound book with incredible speed. She was in her own world, sometimes pausing to admire an old piece of work. Eventually, she found a crisp, blank page, and got to work.

Alice looks best when she's drawing. Her stubby little pencil, almost missing its eraser, is flying across the canvas paper, the hue of a dove's downy feathers. She stuck the tip of her tongue out from underneath her front teeth in concentration, her eyes lightened by the sensation of drawing, the emotions stirring inside of her displayed by the smile upon her face. Alice has the prettiest irises I've ever seen; they're silver and reflective, the light bouncing off of them like a pair of tiny concave mirrors. At the moment, they twinkled like a billion supernovas, the fairy lights of my room glossy on the surface of the frozen sea. Every so often, she would glance up at my face and her expression would change, to worry, to frustration, and she would grind her pencil against the paper, before calming down again. Neither of us said a word, having our conversation instead through some intimate link between us.

The clock crept on, but I wasn't very tired. I stared off into the distance, at the shining glass of the window, a reflective hole to the outside. Something was bugging me. Something that had been bugging me the entire day, the questions ringing in my ears. I needed someone to know.

"Hey, Space Cadet," Alice teased, flopping onto her stomach next to me on the bed, sticking a bit of her tongue out coyly. She pressed a kind of crumpled sheet of paper against my chest, a small rip at the side. I looked at it, but didn't really see it. Something was incredibly wrong.

"Hey."

Alice grasped my arm, pulling me away from the paper, from own pencil strokes. Her long, dark hair acted as a trim to her pale skin, her expression filled with trust, yet also agitation. Her small button nose was close enough to touch mine, her hands tiny in mine.

"Juniper, something is wrong and we both know it."

I took a breath before beginning, sitting on my knees on the bed. "I had this...dream last night."

She raised an eyebrow, exposing a bit more of her silver, glasslike eyes. "Oh? We're gonna go all Percy Jackson now?" She coughed into her elbow before awkwardly grimacing and nodding seriously. "Ok, sorry. Continue."

I brushed some hair out of my face, stammering as I tried to attain an idea of where to start. "So, you obviously know that I have seizures."

"Wow Sherlock."

I simply continue, ignoring her sarcasm. "Except there's a part I don't really understand. After the seizure is immediately over, I'm okay and stuff, I go to the hospital, I come home. It's just that when I wake up in the morning, the morning after, I always have the same dream. I've never really told anyone this. I mean, it sounds pretty stupid..I should really stop here, you probably don't want to hear about the dream anyways-"

Alice shook her head, face lit up with intrigue, like a little kid hearing a bedtime story. "No, please. I want to know."

Face reddened by her curiosity, I started my tale after a moment of hesitation.

"So…" I pulled at the threads of my memory, trying to recall every bit of the dream I'd had. "The dream starts with me being pushed into the ocean. Not at the beach, where we usually surf. A different part of the ocean. Or maybe even a different ocean. I don't see who pushed me, the dream starts as soon as I hit the water. The wind is knocked out of me, and I barely have time to catch my breath. Everything, and I mean _everything_ is dark. I assume the dream takes place during nighttime, but even the moon and stars are covered up. Oh, and the water's freezing too. So yeah, not a good start."

I continued, letting out a deep breath before I did so. "Besides the immense darkness and cold though, it's quite calm. I just sort of let myself float for a while. You know that feeling when you're trying to fall asleep, and only a small part of you is awake? Yeah. That's the feeling." I say as she nods.

"And then, all of a sudden, someone grabs me from behind. They start to drag me down deeper into the water. I…" The next part I wasn't so keen on describing. It was the strange part of the dream. "I want to fight them off, like I know I'll drown, but I don't want to hurt them. It's like...I know I'm drowning, and that I'll, um, _die_...but I want to let it happen."

We're silent for a while. Alice sat there, enthralled, her mouth hanging open like she's a baby bird looking for food. Her colorless eyes twinkled with life and interest, the same desire to know what the dream meant that I had every time it resurfaced.

I smiled awkwardly, trying to get out of the moment. "And then the dream ends. I mean, it ends super weirdly."

"How does it end?" Alice asked, an air of mystery in her tone.

I chuckled uncomfortably, trying to ward off her gaze. Even when I looked away, I could still feel her staring. "Oh well, you know. I just get electrocuted. No big deal."

"No big deal?" She laughed and grabbed my hands. "That's such a cool dream. _That_ is a muse, if I've ever seen one. Like, a rock band's album cover. I told you, anything can be a muse. I'm going to paint that when I get home."

I nodded, trying to hide my disappointment. I thought for a second she'd understood the dream. But she only got part of it. The mysterious aspect, for sure, she had comprehended, but she didn't get the scary part. I know, nightmares sound sort of childish, but there is a part of that dream that makes me afraid in the worst kind of way. In that dream, there's a horrible instinct that wants to give up a part of myself, a part of myself I don't truly understand yet. To give up searching for who I was before Juniper, to give up on the reason behind everything.

I mean, even if he never completed high school, he must've been somebody...right?

**A/N: Whoa, what a weird way to end the chapter. Juju's got some issues, but that's chill, let's cut him some slack. Alice is a fun, sort of dryly sarcastic character to write with a sweet side. Plus, as an author, artsy characters are just easier to write than sciency characters. At least, that's the way it is for me. **

**(Also, I thought that would be a good place to end the chapter, so Alice never really leaves the house, but she will **_**probably**_ **will in the next chapter.)**

**(Also, also, Tabs finally hath arrived.)**

**Anyways, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	5. Chapter 4: Football

**Chapter 4: Football**

**Alice Snow's POV**

**21:43, Monday, May 12**

**San Diego, CA**

The Baronets never lock the fence in their backyard. It's quite stupid, honestly.

Okay, yeah, they have a high tech security system with cameras and stuff (it's only activated when you're inside the house; if it were me, I would've had it outdoors as well), and the fence in easily climbable, but hey, if it saves me the trouble, then it would save a thief or burglar the trouble as well. Ergo, the Baronets should really lock the fence in their backyard.

I came up with this mini essay in my head as I leisurely strolled through the gate and into the yard of their next door neighbor. Here's where I'm going to have to be a bit more careful; sure, I could book it, but then they would get all suspicious. But then again, sneaking around in the hydrangea bushes is quite suspicious as well, especially at ten o'clock at night, so…

_Maybe I'll just walk right through. If I look like I belong there, they won't second guess it._

_Yeah_, I thought, sauntering onto the lawn with the sort of lazy pride football kids walk down the hall with. _Yeah, I live right near here, and I'm getting home late from swim practice. What's that? Why is my hair dry? Oh, you see, the night air dried it...What? Why don't I have my swim stuff? You see-_

This little conversation in my head was interrupted as a rottweiler came hurtling at me from the back porch.

"Shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot..." I muttered under my breath, each growing more panicked as the dog's bared fangs and shining, black, angry eyes came closer towards me. I booked it across the lawn, my feet hitting the hard-packed dirt the way lighting strikes a tree. My vision narrowed to a certain spot on the fence (a little bit taller than the Baronet's, but still pretty vault-able), and tucking my sketchbook safely underneath my arm, I stuck my hands out in front of me and rocketed over the fence. Bobby pins went flying out of my hair as I did so, and small splinters stuck into the palms of my hands, but at least I made it over.

I gracefully landed on my rear end on the other side, sitting there, catching my breath for a few seconds before I felt the pressure of the rottie banging into the fence behind me, its barks rattling in the night air. Slowly, I stood up, brushing off my skirt as I went, and kept walking.

_Yeah, maybe let's never do that. Like, ever again._ I chastised myself in my head, as I made my way to the front yard of this house. Unlike the two former homes, this one (eureka!) didn't have a fence. Well, it technically did on one side, but that was more of the fence of the rottweiler family, so it doesn't really count.

_Still, that was pretty good running. Looks like being the middle school track champion _did _amount to something, Jorge. _

Speaking of Jorge; I should hurry home.

I found myself wishing that that little excursion could've gone better. Juniper seemed to have..._fun_. As much fun as you can have sitting there and doing nothing while some awkward teenage girl draws you. I don't know, he always seems sort of indifferent when I do this.

And yes, I do this _a lot_.

I'm never sure what I expect will happen. I mean, no offense to him, but Juniper truly sucks at picking up whatever hints I put down for him. Even if he did pick them up, I'm not sure he would know what to do with them. Like, he would see 'Oh darn, she's flirting', and have a vague idea of my feelings for him, but giving any teenage boys information about romance (especially when it's guided _towards_ them in particular) is like the equivalent of giving jigsaw puzzle pieces to a two year old.

I'll tell you what I did not expect to happen; Juniper telling me about that mermaid pest problem. Wow. Yeah, that was...that was heavy. What a dream. More of a nightmare actually, but just plain freaky. I don't dream very often. For an artist, I'm not a very creative person. It's kind of hilarious. And ironic. A bit of both.

The night air tickled my skin, the wind adding a slight chill to the air. I closed my eyes, letting my feet guide me home rather than my eyes. I love nights like this so much. The distant smell of the ocean, mixed with the buzz of cicadas, and the idea that lights were clicking off all around me, people retiring to their beds where they will peacefully have their mermaid dreams, felt pretty good, for some reason. It made me feel like the world was zeroing in on me, like I was the only person on earth. It made me feel important for once.

My notebook peacefully thumps against my wrist as I put my hands in my pockets, strolling down the side of the road at a comfortable pace. The Pacific glittered in the distant moonlight, just a silver orb hanging over the water. Our beautiful beach sat peacefully for once, the usual bustle of surfers and families absent. From up here on this hilltop, you can see the stretch of water for nearly a mile, broken only by the occasional sharp angle of a rooftop or a palm frond blowing in the wind. Almost too beautiful to really exist. I would give anything to live up in these parts of San Diego.

I pause for a moment, watching the scene, feeling the pulse of the ocean. My face falls, and I glance at the ground. I would love to live in this part of San Diego. But I don't. But hey, that's okay. My neighborhood isn't bad, don't get that idea. I mean, the house is nice, but the home isn't.

Swinging my sweatshirt off my shoulder and tying it tightly around my waist, I keep walking, only interrupted by the occasional flash of headlights. It was pretty peaceful for a while. No rottweilers chased me, so that's a plus. It takes almost an hour for me to walk from my house to Juniper's, and another hour back. One might wonder why I do it. Well, there's a pair of hours I don't have to spend at home, so that's a plus.

Until finally, I reach it. A nice little house, shielded by eucalyptus trees growing around the driveway. A pair of middle-class type cars. A cute mailbox with the word _MARTIN_ painted on it (when Sorscia married Jorge, we moved into his house. She decided on taking this last name, like she did in her last two marriages, but me and Holden got to keep ours). The house was painted that kind of weird auburn-y color that basically every house in San Diego is painted. Just a normal house.

I scoffed at the idea. A normal house. A girl can dream.

My footsteps feel loud and heavy in the empty night. As I get closer to the house, I can see the blue glow of a TV screen inside. When I peek through a gap in the ugly, yellow-y floral curtains, I could see several men sitting on a couch together, with a football game being displayed on the screen.

_Dam_, I thought, drawing away from the curtains as quick as I had looked in. _We didn't account for Monday night football. You can spend the night at Vanessa's house. Abort, abort, abort. _

_But all your school stuff is in there still. Then you'd have to skip school tomorrow. Either that or face Jorge going back to get your stuff._

_Just drop out of school and become one of those artists selling commission sketches on the side of the road._

No_, but then you'll be a failure like your gosh darn mother._ I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to bid away any tears that threatened to spill into my eyes. My back slid down against the wall as I tried to stop myself from trembling.

_Alright then, Al,_ I thought, _stop thinking, you know you'll just overcomplicate things. Plus, the audience is getting tired of reading italicized sentences. _

_Oh!_ I opened my eyes, gasping softly. Why hadn't I thought of it before?

I whipped my phone out of my pocket (a miniskirt with pockets; revolutionary, right?), and tapped on the tiny icon that said 'Holden'.

My fingers capered over the numbers and letters, punctuation forgotten in a brief moment of fast communication.

_Alice, 22:26: Holden you need you let me in_

_Alice, 22:26: Through the basement door, not the front door_

I crept down the sloped side of the house, plant fronds catching me in the eye every so often, the cool cement refreshing against my bare arms and nearly bare back. My hair got caught in one of the brambles at one point, a minor inconvenience, but still something that could've easily gotten me caught by Jorge or Sorscia. Honestly, I don't know how any of those survive with the grass so dead and dry at this time of year.

I carefully undid the knot it had twisted itself into little strands of black falling against my pale shoulders. You know, a lot of people wonder about that. My pale skin and dark hair. I guess I get the pale skin from Sorscia, but nothing else really. It's practically albino, actually. My older half brother Walter has it too. But the black hair and grey eyes are from Dad. When the kids in grade school wondered why I wasn't bothered with their teasing, their calling me 'vampire' and 'ghoul girl', it was because Dad had already beat them to it. He thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Biting my lower lip, a nervous habit I utilize often without even realizing it, I feel the phone vibrate against the palm of my hand. I glance down naturally, my neck craned over so I could see the message. When I read it, I groaned. Of course, it wasn't the person I had texted. That's typical with my luck.

_Poeu, 22:28: guys help wuts answer to question 21 on mrs. Forresters hw_

I rolled my eyes and pocketed the phone again. We're really playing the friends with benefits game tonight, aren't we, Poeu.

Just after I did that, I felt a buzz against the back of my leg. Hoping it was the right person this time, I looked down at the glowing phone screen.

_Holden, 22:29: Only if you tell me why you were outside again_

I typed my next message furiously fast.

_Alice, 22:29: I went out to Vanessas house Im really sorry _

_Alice, 22:30: I promise I will find a way to make it up to you_

...what, you didn't _actually_ expect me to tell him the truth, did you? That would be a suicide mission. Telling your younger brother you snuck out to see a boy is the end of both your home and social life. No, Vanessa is the safest option. I _could've_ come up with another odd story, like the swim one from before, but when you're trying to just get inside as quickly as you can, theatrics matter less than your safety.

I waited for what felt like an eternity before I heard a tapping at the glass, not unlike how I had greeted Juniper only about an hour before. When I peeked through the sliding door of the family room (yeah right. It's there for storing all the furniture from our old house. Jorge promised Sorscia we would integrate some of our old stuff into his home, but it hasn't happened yet, and I doubt it ever will. I doubt he's ever really cared about that either way).

Holden stood there, clad in pajamas, heavy bags underneath his deep brown eyes. His hair, a light, coppery color, was tousled and stuck up everywhere. The utter look of annoyance and disappointment on his face was enough to make me wince. Despite being younger, he's always been the more responsible of the two of us. However, I'm pretty sure that's only because he's always the more scared of the two of us.

"I'm not covering for you next time," he mumbled, as he locked the door behind me after I came inside, anger and vexation dripping from his words like a rancid acid.

I rocked back and forth on my heels, shooting him a playful grin. "You always say that."

"I'm serious. When Mom asked where you were after dinner, do you know how hard it was to convince her that you were already asleep?" He stretched, the muscles on his back rippling underneath his thin t-shirt as he did so, like a cheetah's does.

"Funny, I thought Jorge would be the skeptical one."

"He was. He wanted to go down and check to make sure you didn't have a boy down there. And then-"

I scoffed. "Like he cares."

"You're interrupting my story, Alice," Holden chastised, before starting again, his brow wrinkled angrily. Holden loves being at the center of attention. It's just part of being the youngest sibling.

Okay, fine, there's Lily. But you know what, she's Jorge's kid. I don't count her as part of my siblings. Walter neither. You're only my siblings if your parents are Sorscia and Dad, and there's only one of those, so I only have one sibling, and that's that.

"Alrighty then, Hold the Bold, continue your epic tale," I grumbled, wrapping one arm around him in a quick hug, my thanks for lying for me and letting me in.

He shook his head, rolling his eyes. "It doesn't matter anymore. What matters is that I almost got into trouble for you, and I'm going to sleep. Don't bother me anymore."

I went to open the door to my room (technically it's the boiler room, but it's been my bedroom for about seven years now, so there's not really a difference), but turned around at the last minute. "Jeez kid, how can you sleep with all the racket those drunk sleazes are making?"

Holden cocked one eyebrow. "A handy dandy little thing called ear plugs. Now go to bed."

I nodded as I slipped into my room, the windowless, poster covered, dark space almost comforting. Almost. I mean, you get used to it after seven years, but it never really feels homey or comfy or anything, you know? It's certainly a stark contrast from the magic of Juniper's bedroom, his twinkling, golden fairy lights, warm, Indian corn-toned tapestries, pastel purple and blue scarves hanging from the ceiling, and little plants in ceramic jars creating a cozy atmosphere. I didn't ever want to leave.

Without taking my shoes off, I flopped backwards onto the bed, its springs crunching uncomfortably underneath me. I tried rolling onto my side, facing the bronze pipes running up and down the wall. Barely, just barely, I could sort of see my reflection in one of the pipes, my face stretched out like a funhouse mirror against the boiler itself.

I found myself wondering how I ever dreamed Juniper could love a face like this. How I ever had a hope of escaping this life and moving into his.

No. No, he's just a toddler with the pointless puzzle pieces.

Another shout sounded from upstairs, as the opposing team scored. I curled my legs up underneath me, grabbed my pillow, and shoved it over my head.

_It's going to be a long night. Dam you, Mondays. _

oOoOoOoOo

**A/N: Don't y'all love my pseudo swearing?**

**Okay, yeah, so there's Alice's POV! It's not a very pleasant POV though, is it? It's okay, her life will get better, I promise...okay, it takes a while, but it'll probably get better. Next up: Tabetha's POV, because **_**parenting**_**. Anyways, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	6. Chapter 5: Case

**Chapter 5: Case**

**Tabetha Baronet's POV**

**6:50, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

"Hey."

"Hey."

"You awake?"

"I think."

I giggled at the silliness of my own question, before feeling Erica slide into bed right next to me, her chest directly against my back. I sank into her warmth, the cold of the air conditioner in our bedroom trying to tug me into its raw, prickly atmosphere, but when my wife took me in her arms, the chill was stifled even more than it was by the blanket over me. She pulled the blanket up to my chin, like she was tucking in a small child, and a grin pulled at the corner of my mouth. Snuggling closer to Erica, her muffled breath tickling the back of my neck, I slid one arm under the pillows as I opened my mouth again.

"Did Juniper leave for school?"

She nodded, her nose brushing against my earlobe. "Yeah." She hesitated before speaking again, her warm breaths quietly cascading down my skin in the silence. "Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about him, actually."

"Yeah, sure," I murmured, rolling over. Erica's eyes were wide open, round orbs of a beautiful, cloudy blue. I couldn't help but think back to the first time I saw those eyes; the smell of new books and the sound of flipping pages, raindrops still dripping on the windows of the bookstore, sun shining in beautiful shafts where there was once clouds.

She had been wearing her favorite blue dress.

Erica blinked a couple times quickly, as if trying to wake herself up a bit more, her eyelashes lightly brushing against her light toned skin before she started talking.

"I think Juniper's schedule should be more, well…" she struggled to find the word, shifting awkwardly a bit as her brain whirled its gears furiously fast. "Secure."

I propped myself up on one elbow, situating a bit of my hair behind my hair with a flick of my index finger. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, I was doing some reading, and I found a report that a friend of mine wrote."

It didn't surprise me that a friend of hers wrote it. It seems like Erica is basically friends (or friends of friends) with every person in America who has even a vague interest in science. She actually works as an executive for some scientific program in Washington D.C., but she only needs to take business trips there about once a month. Apparently, they're working on curing some chronic disease without a real treatment. I don't remember which one; the name she gave me was long, confusing, and frankly, kind of boring. I try to be interested, really, but none of it makes any sense to me. Science isn't really my cup of tea. I don't necessarily dislike it (Juniper hates it. All Juniors have to take Anatomy and Physiology, and even though his teacher is nice, and he gets good grades, he just hates being in the classroom), but it was never my favorite subject.

"Okay," I said, nodding and sitting up all the way. Erica followed suit, her wavy bob cut not needing any guidance in how to fall perfectly, knowing naturally how to frame her high cheekbones, slim nose, thin-lipped smile, a face I knew all too well.

"So you see, the report that she wrote said that although seizures don't really have a true cause behind them, they can be triggered by things like a lack of sleep," Erica moved her hands excitedly, the way she always did when she was trying to explain something. Or when she figured out who the murderer in _Clue_ is. Either one.

"Okay?..." I nodded, though I had no idea where the conversation was going.

Enthusiasm clearly defeated by my lack of understanding, Erica's hands fell into her lap, her bottom lip sticking out in kind of a cute pout. "Tabs, what I'm saying is that Juniper was playing video games at Poeu's on Saturday night. So, he _obviously_ was tired the next morning."

Nodding slowly, I leaned against Erica's outstretched arm, biting down on my nail thoughtfully. "So you're saying he doesn't go to Poeu's house anymore?"

"No, no, I'm not saying not anymore at all." She then shrugs, making a weird face, as she frees her arm from underneath my weight. "Just...just maybe a bit less. And not so late. During the afternoon, yeah, sure, it's okay. But not so much during the evenings anymore. So he can get better sleep. That's all I'm saying."

"Well, during the afternoons he has to see Dr. A. on Tuesdays and Thursday, and he has work on on Wednesdays. And if he does homework right afterschool on Monday - which he usually does - that only leaves Friday. Saturday mornings he also has work, and he would be devastated if he wasn't able to go over to Poeu's or Vanessa's on Saturday evenings."

I look up into Erica's eyes (okay, she's a lot taller than me, don't judge), and give her a small shrug. "The idea of it is great, but I'm not sure how great it would be for Juju."

Erica smiled like she was looking at a lovesick puppy, tilted her head to the side, and took my hands in hers gently. "Tabs. I love you, and I love your heart. You have the best intentions, truly...but I think Juniper's health should come before his social life."

I thought about it for a second. Now that we were sitting up, Erica's warmth had faded from my side. My eyes were trained down at the blanket as I nodded slowly. She definitely had a point. I mean, she _is_ the scientist of the family. I should trust her to make the best of decisions.

I looked up eventually, nodding and looking into Erica's eyes. She gave a slight, toothy grin, before leaning down and planting a tender kiss on my cheek.

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**7:03, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

I rubbed the pad of my thumb along the piece of paper Alice had given me the night before, trying to get rid of the tiny creases and wrinkles. It was absolutely beautiful. I mean, she had clearly over exaggerated my features. I can't really look like that. But she made it look natural and sincere, with a sort of charming smile and a jaunty little raise of the eyebrow. Glancing up at the rearview mirror, I tried making the same expression, but it came out all twisted and wrong. Kinda gross looking when actually on my face. Hoping nobody hadn't noticed, I pushed the paper into the depth of my backpack, wondering if Alice knew how truly unrealistic her sketch actually was.

My attention was grabbed as the brakes literally screeched. My eyes widened, practically jumping out of my face, and I grabbed my stomach on either side. Lucky barked with surprise in the backseat, and I heard some scratching of claws.

"Oh, well that's perfect. See, I had actually intended to nearly get in a car crash today, sir, but since you're so smart, you already knew that and saved me the time."

Poeu's an amazing friend, and a horrible driver. Obviously more focused on keeping his Starbucks Strawberry Frappuccino from spilling, Poeu's beetleblack eyes darted between his pastel pink drink and the black pavement stretched out ahead of him. He swerved left awkwardly, narrowly missing a mailbox. Clutching the arm rest in between our seats with one hand, I gritted my teeth, my gaze flicking from one side of the road to the other, doing what my friend was clearly not.

"Dude, I'm pretty convinced you're trying to get us both killed." I muttered irritatedly.

Poeu grabbed the drink from the cup holder it had been placed it, took one long sip, and put it back in its place. "I'm pretty sure I deserve a thank you for driving you to school," he retorted. Not with meanness, just a barrel load of sass.

"I'm not gonna thank you until I'm sure you're not hungover, and we get there safely. And yes, safely includes no concussions."

Poeu and I have never crashed on our way to school, but there's been a few near misses. Sometimes I wish my moms would drive me to school, but Erica needs to stay so she can bring Sunny and Opal to school, and we all know Tabs isn't any better than Poeu. So, here we are. But as he always proclaims, any time spent with Poeu is time 'wasted well'.

Poeu brushed some of his shaggy hair out of his face with one hand, bits of the natural, deep brown mixing with bleached, sunflower blonde, and thin strips of a faded tone of hot magenta. "So, like, are you good? Like, since you had a seizure this weekend and stuff?"

I shrugged, looking out at the houses flying by outside the window. "I'm not sure. I feel good, but I had the worst headache last night." I looked at the backpack sitting on the floor of the car. "I didn't even try doing the homework."

He sucked in his breath through his teeth, a sign of shared sympathy that showed that he hadn't done it either. "You know, Juniper, in a year, we'll have graduated, and none of this will have mattered."

"Not for you, maybe," I said, scratching Lucky under the chin, her tail thumping against the floor from all the excitement. "But I've only been in high school since January, and I've got a lot of catching up to do."

As we pulled into the school, I started to get Lucky's leash out of the side of the door. She got up on all fours, her tail brushing against the ceiling like a curled, golden, feather duster. Head poking into the front seat, Lucky started to sniff Poeu's iced coffee. He pushed her away with one hand haphazardly, groaning.

"Man's best friend my foot," he grumbled, disgusted at her dripping dog slobber (Poeu's not an animal lover).

I hooked the leash around the tiny silver tab on her robin's egg blue collar. "If dogs aren't man's best friend, what is?"

As we pulled into a parking space, Poeu looked thoughtfully into the distance, trying to think of an answer. When he'd come up with his response, he nodded once curtly, and looked me in the eyes with a cocky smile on his face.

"Seam rippers."

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**12:02, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

Trying to do math while waiting for lunch is practically unbearable. Of the twenty kids in our class, nineteen were tapping their pencils on the side of their desks and staring at the clock. The one outlier just so happened to be a girl named Vanessa.

Her answers just rough scribbly marks on the paper and her calculator bearing symbols and numbers alike, all of Vanessa's focus was dedicated to the paper in front of her. Being the youngest in our whole class can be a bit stressful for her at times. She insists that she has to 'prove herself' as a member of the pre-calc class, but honestly it doesn't matter that much. Our teacher, Mr. Young (who, no offense to him, is the opposite of that statement), doesn't really notice if we don't do our work anyways. He's practically deaf, so we can talk as much as we want, and he never checks the homework. We learned that when, instead of actual answers, the class tried an experiment and wrote down our phone numbers instead, and all got 100%.

Well, everyone in the class participated _except_ Vanessa.

"Egads, Juniper," she murmured, her curls bouncing everywhere as her arm moved over the paper. "You need to do the work."

"I did do the work, Vanessa," I muttered, looking down at the packet in front of me. "I mean, I'm not sure if it's correct. There's only ten minutes left of class, we don't have time to double check the whole thing."

She tried to grab at my paper, almost distressed. "Not the whole thing, but you can at least check a couple problems!"

I rolled my eyes, not able to help the smile on my face. She was pecking around the math packet like a mother bird, her eyes jumping from word to word. Vanessa, one of my best friends, puts a capital P in perfectionist. We've tried to stop her, really but it's sort of been ingrained into her at this point.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned, I saw Rich Patterson turned to look at me, a weird glint in his steely grey eyes.

"Hey, dude, did you see the news on Saturday night?"

"No, I was in the hospital. What is it?" As I asked, he handed his phone to me. I looked at the screen, the bold black letters taking several moments for my head to process. I blinked, narrowing my eyes.

Vanessa craned her neck over my shoulder. I glanced back to look at her, and her eyes were wide as she tried cleaning her lopsided, blocky glasses on her shirt. When she put them back on, her eyes somehow got even wider.

"Egads...I heard about that...do you think he's okay?"

Rich looked at one of the other boys in the class, and the two of them were clearly trying not to laugh. "Who cares?"

I looked at the headline closer, still in a bit of shock:

_**New York Teenage Boy Found Unconscious In Dumpster, Police Officers Convinced It Was An Attack By Mutants**_

The article was, indeed, dated from two days ago. When I looked up, the entire rest of the class was watching me read it, as if they wanted to see my reaction. Rolling my eyes, I continued to read, trying to hide how truly interested I was.

_There are people in New York who think the mutants are amusing. There are people who are disgusted by them. There are even people who believe they deserve rights, just like humans. But no matter what you think, everybody can agree on one thing; whether they're humorous, revolting, or accepted, they're_ dangerous.

_This was recently displayed by an assault on eighteen-year-old Arnold Jones Jr., known exclusively by his friends as 'Casey' Jones. He was found in a dumpster right outside a noodle shop in Chinatown, with cuts, bruises, and a left leg that was broken in three different places. Of course, this evidence alone wouldn't be enough to make the claim he was attacked by a mutant. However, the encrypting piece of information in question of the attack not being by a human is the infection in the cut on his face. _

"_The most common type of infection in that sort of a cut would be from Staphylococcus aureus, or Enterococci. However, with Jones' case, there's some sort of venom that was exposed to the wound. We've analyzed it in our labs, and it appears to be the venom of some type of Snakehead fish," says Dr. Kirsten Brightman of Mount Sinai Hospital. _

_But that's not all. _

"_According to our research, the venom itself definitely carries traces of mutagen," says Dr. Raymond Cooper, a co-worker of Dr. Brightman. "It intensifies the effect of the venom, making it more lethal. We're working day and night to make sure the venom doesn't get worse, but with proper medication and a couple more nights in the hospital, the thought of that is improbable." _

_Arnold Jones Jr. had been found by a Good Samaritan, Mr. Elliot Marcus. A girl who goes to his school, April O'Neil, has gone on record saying that they were 'hanging out' by the docks when the mutant fish had attacked them. Rumor has it that there were three other kids with them, as Mr. Marcus claimed he saw three other silhouettes on the docks with them, but the teens have asserted that this is, in fact, not true. Jones, in his recovery at the hospital, has received countless get well cards from his classmates at school, but has not yet woken up. O'Neil, who did not receive as much injuries as Jones, is recuperating at home with her father. Arnold Jones [Senior], Arnold's father, had something to say as well: _

"_My son, Arnold, almost lost his life to that mutant freak. My only son. He is now lying comatose in a hospital bed, because the New York City Police Department is too incompetent to deal with this mutant problem. People are afraid, and more importantly, people are getting hurt. Arnie almost died, and I want to see some action taken to prevent anything worse from happening!" _

_The NYPD's only statement on the attack is that they are sorry that young Arnold had been assaulted, and that they recommend that the citizens of New York stay away from the docks, and that parents make sure they know where their children are going. _

_But then this raises the question: do mutants really deserve rights? This is a topic we've discussed many times, and every time the answer comes out different depe-_

I stopped scrolling there. My thumb hovered over the glowing screen, my eyes glued to a single spot on the page. A picture. I zoomed in, my heart beating against my rib cage. Something about that picture was just..._so_ familiar.

I read the description underneath the photograph: _These are the docks where Arnold Jones Jr. was attacked by a mutant fish. Since they have not been properly sanitized and inspected, and are still considered a crime scene, we recommend you DO NOT GO NEAR THERE AT ALL COSTS! Thank you. _

Those docks...that water...and even more, that _name_…

My head was spinning. A spiral, unprovoked, had started. I dropped the phone on the floor, running my fingers through my hair and panting like a dog. Lucky, whose leash had been tied to the leg of my desk the whole time, gave one quick sniff to the phone before putting her head down on my lap sympathetically.

Rich gasped, grabbed the phone off the ground, and stared at me. "Dude, what the heck?! I mean, I get it's shocking, but like, it's all the way in New York. That's, like, a billion miles away."

I barely heard what he said. My bottom lip trembled, along with basically the rest of my body. Nausea had crept into my throat. It was even worse than last night's.

The girl who sits behind me and Vanessa, Mary White, snatched the phone from over my shoulder, laughing as she read the article. "I looked up what a Snakehead fish looks like. It's sort of an ugly thing." She sighed, rubbing her thumb on the phone screen. "Oh, but that boy is devilishly handsome."

Her friend, Kari Hee, snatched the phone from her grasp. "You have a boyfriend, Mary!"

"I like boys with spunk!"

"You like boys _period_!"

The spiral was getting worse and worse by the second. The colors of the room started to melt together, swirling and coiling and winding, clouds that hang over my head. I was already sweating from the heat of the classroom, but the stifling climate surrounding me was making that even worse. The panicky turmoil in my heart intensified, and tears were forced to my face.

Some sort of strange noise rose up in my throat. Unconsciously, I started shaking my head. It was like I was watching myself do something instead of actually willing myself to do it. My mouth started moving automatically, like I was a machine programmed to do that.

"Case...case, docks...d-dock...f-f-f-fish...f-fish face...fishfa-fishface, p-p-pound...shredded, shred, shred, shred…"

Vanessa grabbed my shoulders, but I hardly noticed.

"Juniper. Juniper, are you okay? Did you take your Phenytoin? Do you need to go to the nurse?" She waved her arms over her head as she leapt to her feet, trying to get them attention of Mr. Young. Even though I felt the movement of her arms on the back of my neck, her existence was sort of indifferent to mine, at the moment.

I swallowed, trying to ignore the bile in my stomach. Something about that article set me off…

...no, it wasn't about that article. It was about that picture.

_What _was _it about that picture?_

I had to know.

And as the lunch bell rang, I found that I wasn't very hungry.

oOoOoOoOo

**A/N: I find that ending chapters has never been my strong suit. So I try to end them at the worst possible moments as a way to get my audience to be like 'hey, wait, what?'. Maybe they'll come back? Probably not, lol. Mostly because I sort of rushed through Juniper's bit of the chapter, but I definitely had fun writing Tabs' POV. Idk why, I love Tabs more than I should. **

**There's a couple of new things we introduced in this chapter. POV switching, that's exciting (that was our test run for next chapter, when we use that feature far too much). We introduced Poeu and Vanessa (whenever Poeu is present, imagine 'Material Girl' by Madonna is playing in the background), and I love those characters (there's so many characters in this story, we still haven't gotten through all of them). And yes, you heard it right, we introduced someone who **_**isn't**_ **my OC! Hallelujah, we've reached what you came here for!**

**Finally, thank you to Drumboy100! It meant so much to me that you took the time to compliment my writing style, and that you even read the story at all, and if you're reading this right now, again, thank you!**

**Anyways, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	7. Chapter 6: Happy

**A/N: Ladies and gentlemutants, I do believe I've made a horrible mistake. There's something that I did not clarify, even though I should've. **

**So, the timeline: **

**Space Arc never happened. To those of you who enjoyed the Space Arc, I'm sorry. I just think it's super out of the blue, pretty anticlimactic at most parts, and seeing as they went right back to the moment in time they had left earth, I think it was pretty pointless. Some of the characters they meet up there were pretty fun, yes, and most of the settings were very aesthetically pleasing. However, I just didn't like it as much as others did. That's why it's not included on my timeline. **

**So here's how it goes: **

**They [our boys and co.] defeat Triceratons. **

**They live life like normal for a couple weeks for once. **

**The EPF starts _bringing_ stuff from other dimensions and worlds, like Chompy's egg and the crystal. **

**They start to investigate to like, you know, protect the world. **

**All of the hijinks of when they return to earth happen. **

**However, I cut the line at 'Tale Of Tiger Claw'. Sorry, but I don't think Splinter needed to die a _third_ _time_. **

**From 'Tale Of Tiger Claw' on, I'm not really sure. They fight the usual mutants, get into their usual trouble. Foot clan drama. The EPF becomes a bigger enemy. They spend some time relaxing for once. Donnie and April officially become, like, _a thing_. Until, you know November 13 (for those of you without spectacular memory, try and look back when else that date appeared in this story. To those of you _with_ spectacular memory, kudos to you). **

**So yeah, thanks guys. Sorry about that, I should've said it in Chapter 1. So have a nice day, hope you like the chapter. **

oOoOoOoOo

**Chapter 6: Happy**

**April O'Neil's POV**

**18:15, Tuesday, May 13**

**New York City, NY**

Hospitals have never really appealed to me. I mean, I don't think they appeal to anyone. The sterile, cold air. The linoleum floor that makes everything echo. The amount of dead and dying people. It feels so much more cut off from the rest of New York, the liveliness and brisk pace of my home replaced by this eerie silence. For me, it's just weird.

_I bet it's weird for Casey, too though,_ I thought, glancing down at his unconscious body, lying there, draped in crisp, uncomfortable, hospital sheets. Wires were hooked up all over him, and I didn't know where half of them lead.

This was uncanny. Not only is New York usually more animated, but Casey is too. On missions, there was never a boring moment with him around. Now, being with him was depressing. Like, majorly depressing.

I mean, everything's been like that for us lately.

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**15:15, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

Dr. A beamed at me as I entered his office. His lips parted to reveal a white smile, his glasses hanging off the front of his v-neck shirt. I can't say I was as excited as he was.

"Juniper. Please, have a seat." He gestured to the couch that I usually occupied during our sessions.

Carelessly, I set my backpack down on the floor, and flopped down on the beige couch. Lucky put one paw on the couch, wanting to join me in the way she usually did at home, but I removed it with two fingers as kindly as I could (as I doubt Dr. Al-Hathi is someone who wants his pristine couch dirtied). She closed her mouth from that little puppy grin into a more confused, thin line, and tipped her head on one side. I sighed, before giving her an empathetic pat on the head.

Dr. A wheeled his chair in front of his desk using the balls of his feet. Once in his predetermined spot, he crossed one leg over the other, clicked the end of his emerald green pen, and cocked his head to the side a bit like how Lucky was positioned.

"Now. Let's talk about the state you're in."

oOo

**April O'Neil's POV**

**18:15, Tuesday, May 13**

**New York City, NY**

My phone buzzed violently in my pocket all of the sudden, pulling against the denim of my shorts. I pulled it out, breathless, hoping and praying-

...it was Dad. I shouldn't have been disappointed. But having a friend who is missing gets you really excited whenever your phone rings.

No, no, he's not my friend. He's my _family_.

The phone did not cease to ring, like I expected. Absentmindedly running one finger over the turtle-shell shaped phone case, I stared at my father's profile picture. Two years ago, April would've answered this without hesitation.

But two years ago, I was a very different girl.

_Well, you can't just _not _answer it._ I told myself, and mentally tried to prepare myself for the conversation that followed.

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**15:16, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

"California."

"Hmm?" Dr. Al-Hathi's eyes widened at my answer, perking up as if he'd just been told he was getting a raise of three times what he was making at the moment.

"The state I'm in is California."

Dr. A gave a small laugh, but his eyes betrayed a small glint of annoyance, impatience. "Very funny Juniper, very funny. Now it's time to get to the serious business."

I wanted to snap at him that I was serious, that I took this far more seriously than he would ever know. I wanted to get up and leave, to try and find the root of the problem myself. He may understand how brains work, but he can't understand how minds work. At least, not my mind.

But I didn't do anything. I just sat there, silently.

oOo

**April O'Neil's POV**

**18:17, Tuesday, May 13**

**New York City, NY**

"Hey Dad," I said, forcing my voice to sound higher and happier than it had in several days. There was a pause before he spoke. I could hear his breathing on the other end, but no words came from his mouth. For a second, I was worried something was wrong. I reached for my tessen in my back pocket, my heart speeding up, ready for inevitable action. But his voice came from the cell phone mere moments after I did so.

"Hey April. Is something wrong?"

"No. Why?"

"I raised you, April. I can tell when something's wrong." I let out a deep sigh.

"I guess I'm not the best liar, am I?" I looked at the floor. The shine of the tiles was impeccable, leaving my own disappointed reflection staring up at me. My ginger hair was a mess, the bun I had tried to force it into as tangled as my thoughts. My eyes were puffy and red, and even though the tear lines on my freckled cheeks had mostly disappeared, their scars remained.

"Maybe you are. But you can't lie to me honey. Sorry."

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV **

**15:19, Tuesday, May 13 **

**San Diego, CA **

Outside the window, there was some kind of black bird. A crow, maybe a raven. It landed with grace and ease on the ledge outside Dr. A's window. I sat up, no longer resting on my elbow with carelessness. Panicked, I thought it would try and fly through the window and hurt itself. But it didn't. It just sat there, watching me. Or seemingly so, at least.

When I looked closer, I could see that the bird wasn't truly black. Its feathers were shifting colors in the sunlight. Through the thick heat, the bird glimmered different tones of jade green, and a hazy blue, and a beautiful, royal purple. Its eyes were a dark tone of brown, and it stared with such intensity that I felt a shiver go down my back.

"Juniper?"

I jumped, my eyes jumping over to Dr. A as I did so. He stared at me condescendingly, his glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose. When I looked away, the bird took flight, its black wings a monstrous silhouette against the too sunny sky.

"Juniper." Dr. A called my name again, and this time, I looked over for good. "Were you even listening to a thing I said?"

I shook my head, but was still absent. Maybe it was just me, but I swear that bird was looking at me.

oOo

**April O'Neil's POV **

**18:19, Tuesday, May 13 **

**New York City, NY **

I awkwardly looked out the window, taking slow, calming breaths through my nose. "Is...is there a reason why you called?"

"Oh, yes, of course!" Dad said, before clearing his throat and beginning again. "So my sister called- Aunt Siobhan? Who lives in Canada? It's been a while since you've seen her."

I nodded, though I barely remembered the last time I'd heard Aunt Siobhan's name, let alone seen her.

"Well, she's invited us to spend some time with her in August. Isn't that great? It won't be huge, not a family reunion or anything, just the two of us and her family for a couple days. It'll be fun!"

The word 'fun' echoed in my brain. In the moment it took my answer to form, the words hanging on my lips, my dad figured it out.

"This is about him, isn't it?"

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**15:20, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

Dr. Al-Hathi sat closer, edging up to the edge of his armchair. His eyes narrowed, as if he were trying to get a better look at me. "Juniper, there's clearly something on your mind."

I rapped my fingers on the arm of the couch, choosing to look at Lucky instead of him. When she caught my eye, her puppy grin widened. "There's usually a lot of things on my mind, Doc."

"Well let's talk about them. I heard about what happened at school today. Do you want to discuss that?"

_Not really, but I doubt you're giving me a choice._

I opened my mouth and began the story. "I had a panic attack, I guess. My friend Vanessa took me down to the nurse's office. The nurse called Erica to pick me up. I didn't go to any other classes for the rest of the day."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Not good," I said, shrugging a bit. "I mean, I hate missing school. It makes me feel like a failure. Does that sound weird?"

"That's perfectly normal, Juniper. Now, what do you think triggered this panic attack?"

"Well…" I hesitated, racking my brain for a reason. "I mean, a boy in my class showed me an article. But that can't have caused it."

The doctor leaned even closer, and for a second I feared he was going to fall off his chair. "What was the article about?"

"A teenage boy who got attacked by a mutant in New York. Casey...Casey Jones." I nodded conclusively after saying the name.

oOo

**April O'Neil's POV**

**18:22, Tuesday, May 13**

**New York City, New York**

Suddenly, I wished I was better at lying to my father.

Casey shifted in his sleep, mumbling something about vikings under his breath.

"It's alright if it's about him."

I got up from the chair, my legs tingling with the sudden movement. Outside, the sun glanced off the hoods of cars with an intense angle. The heat of the late spring soaked in through the window pane, warming the spot where I now stood. Pigeons flitted to and fro among the deep emerald trees in Central Park across the street.

"I know you guys have been struggling ever since he...well…"

My dad fell silent. But as silent as I was, in the hospital room.

Trying to ignore the tears that fell down my face.

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**15:22, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

"I don't think that's it though, Dr. Al-Hathi," I said, trying to ignore the dryness of my tongue. "I think that something about the picture in the article bothered me."

The doctor sat forwards. "What was the picture of?"

"Well, it was the dock that Casey was attacked at."

"Do you think you were uncomfortable with it because Casey was attacked there? Perhaps you're relating your own trauma with that of Mr. Jones?"

My hands felt very clammy all of the sudden. When I eventually spoke, my own voice sounded very far away in my head.

"Dr. Al-Hathi, I think I need to tell you about this dream I've been having."

oOo

**April O'Neil's POV**

**18:25, Tuesday, May 13**

**New York City, New York**

"Dad…" I said, my voice very quiet. "I'm sorry. I don't I could handle-"

Dad softly hushed me, like he did when I was very young and I had had a nightmare. I mean, this isn't too different from those times. This whole event...all of this was a nightmare. And the nightmares I have now are very different from those I had when I was younger.

"April, it's okay," he said, tenderly, and I felt a pang of appreciation for the man who raised me on his own. "We're all going through this together."

Despite that bit of encouragement, I couldn't help but feel more alone than ever.

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**15:30, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

Dr. A seemed shocked into silence when I finished, his lips pursed tightly together. He sat there, quietly, for a good long while, before opening his mouth and asking a question that for some reason, despite how happy it's usually phrased, chilled me down to my very core.

"Juniper, are you happy?"

oOo

**April O'Neil's POV**

**18:32, Tuesday, May 13**

**New York City, NY**

Everything had just seemed so hopeless recently. The Foot henchmen were more aggressive than they'd ever been in the past, after what had happened in February...Casey was in the hospital, and Donnie wasn't able to get a cure for him, and all of this was without mentioning how disjointed everything has been with the Hamatos.

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**15:33, Tuesday, May**

**San Diego, CA**

"Come again?"

"Are you happy? Do you like your life here, in California?"

I didn't like where this was going, but I nodded, playing along anyways. I wish I hadn't.

"See? That's what I thought. You see, Juniper...before you were who you are today, you were somebody else. And when that somebody else lost their memories, nobody came for them when they were in the hospital recovering. No matter what excuse you use, that's the sign of someone who _doesn't care_." I didn't even try to hide how much that hurt me.

oOo

**April O'Neil's POV**

**18:33, Tuesday, May 13**

**New York City, NY**

_I supposed the Hamatos must have a reason for being so disjointed though_, I thought, my phone shaking in my hand. I bit my lip to keep from crying.

_After all…_

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**15:34, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

"If nobody in your past life cared about you...why try and go back to it? Here you are, in a place where people care about you and understand you. You have everything you would possibly need right here, right now. If you have all you need, why don't you just…"

oOo

**April O'Neil's POV**

**18:33, Tuesday, May 13**

**New York City, NY**

_...a team cannot function properly when one of its members are missing._

oOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**15:34, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

"...try and forget?"

I sat there, shivering in the air conditioner. I felt like I was going to vomit everywhere, or like it does when an earthquake hits; the balance of the earth shifting and rocking everywhere, and everything changing way too quickly.

Unwillingly, I got to my feet, grabbed the doorknob, muttered some half-hearted excuse about going to get some water, and left the room. I speed walked past the lady at the front desk on my left as quickly as I could, ignoring Erica's questions bombarding me from the right. My face felt hot, and instead of walking, I sort of blundered my way down the hall.

My sudden exit of the conversation hadn't even fully registered to me as I collapsed on the floor of the bathroom, locking the door haphazardly. As Erica started knocking on the door, I felt tears run down my cheeks, the wild emotions of the past twenty-four hours finally catching up to me when I least needed them.

oOo

**Dr. Al-Hathi's POV**

**15:49, Tuesday, May 13**

**San Diego, CA**

The boy left early.

I rapped my finger nervously on the edge of the windowsill as I watched him get into the car, shaking in the heat, looking around as if he were afraid he was being watched.

Some sort of raven or crow was circling overhead their car. One thought plagued my mind as I watched them pull away from my office onto the highway.

_Dr. Wardarc is not going to be very happy with you._

oOoOoOoOo

**A/N: Now, I understand that that must've been very tedious for you to read. Nonetheless, none of you know my pain of having to write that chapter. However, I feel it was sort of an important chapter. Also, according to everyone's favorite psychiatrist, Mendel Wisenbachfeld, 'There is no such thing as happy or sad' (if any of you get the reference, send help, my thespian side hath taken over. Also, I know that's not the actual quote, but it's too late to be accurate). Anyways, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	8. Chapter 7: Jekyll

**Chapter 7: Jekyll**

**Dr. Wardarc's POV**

**2:14, Wednesday, May 14**

**San Diego, CA**

Gently, I turned to the next page in the near ancient book. My eyes scanned over the yellowed sheets of paper, words inked in a neat, orderly font, just one part of a much larger story. I considered the words, wrapped in silence and thought. Why was this page dogeared so many times? What was so special to him about this page?

I stared at the sheet for a while longer, performing a balancing act with that in one hand, and a glass of _Chardonnay_ in the other. After taking one light sip, I opened my mouth, reading the words aloud to the mostly empty room.

"'With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two'." I looked over one shoulder, tapping one foot in time to the invisible heartbeat of a frightened man.

Dr. Al-Hathi raised an eyebrow at my statement. "Is...is that Jules Verne?"

"No. I wasn't really expecting you to know that one, though as a psychologist, you should." I flipped the book closed, admired the torn up, paper-made cover. "Robert Louis Stevenson. 'Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde'. My father's favorite book. More specifically, his favorite part of the book. At least, I assume that; it's the one that's the most abused, so one can guess it's had the most exposure." I smiled, imagining his hands fumbling with the pages and his tongue sticking out in concentration. It still surprises me how far he got in his career with his klutziness.

I handed the book to Al-Hathi casually, brushing a bit of my hair behind my ear. "Now. The boy seemed very distressed this afternoon when he left your office. I assume it didn't really go as planned?"

"Not exactly," Dr. Al-Hathi fidgeted in his seat, fixing his glasses with one hand. "You see, Juniper seemed very distressed the more we started to talk. I did some prying, and eventually, he told me about this dream he had."

I whirled around, and busted out laughing. Al-Hathi seemed surprised when I did so, jumping nearly ten inches out of his chair. My laugh echoed out in the lab like the call of an exotic bird in a jungle, confined to the noise-proof area.

Swirling the light-tinted wine in one hand, I cocked my head to the side in inquiry. "Dr. Al-Hathi, you take the nightmares of a dumb teen seriously?"

"Not just a nightmare, Ma'am. I believe the boy might be regaining his memories."

My mirth was broken with this idea. _No. It can't be. He-he can't be remembering! It's impossible!_

But as Al-Hathi kept explaining the dream, my legs started to get the consistency of gelatine. The docks. The cold. Juniper _was_ regaining his memories.

_No, no, they're his Juniper memories. They're _his _memories. He and Juniper are very different. Juniper is better than him, far better._

Eventually, Dr. Al-Hathi stopped talking, and I looked at the neurological doctor with a hint of interest in my gaze.

"What did you tell him?"

"Well, I tried to change the subject a bit...okay, I actually changed the subject a lot."

I narrowed my eyes. Something about his behavior was making me skeptical. His fidgets and shifts were red flags that not all he was saying was as it seemed.

"What exactly did you tell him?" I asked, cocking my head on its side and letting my hair tumble down in small spirals.

"Well…" the doctor seemed very nervous. I found myself slowly walking to the other side of the chair he was sitting in, plucking my father's book out of his hands as I did so. When my back was to him (he probably turned to try and face me. See, that's when you know you've got them; I had the upper hand), he took a deep breath and found the words he was searching for.

"I suggested to him that maybe he should _try_ and forget. You know, try and let go of his life before."

Behind my back, my hands curled like a pair of spider's around a struggling fly. I turned, anger blazing in my chest, and gave him a dangerous look. As dangerous as letting what you really think show, for the first time in a long time, the words that I really wanted to say spilled out of my mouth like liquid poison.

"You know, _doctor_ \- if you can call yourself that -, if this book wasn't so old, I would slap you with it." My tone, typically calm and level, quivered with the seduction of the intense, clawing monster of wrath in my chest.

Dr. Al-Hathi, like a kicked dog, flinched and looked at the ground. I scoffed, shaking my head and continuing to pace in a circle around the chair.

"Dr. Al-Hathi, there are things you don't really understand. Children, for instance. Oh, sure, you get how their brains work. You have a master's degree in the psychology of minors. You've spent your whole life reading about it. But you're not the best at acting on these studies. You of all people should know that Juniper wants nothing more than to remember who he was, even if he's not going to openly say it to anybody. He wants to know that he's not worthless - even if he is, sometimes. He wants to be wanted. He wants to be _understood_."

I turned on the psychologist, blazing. "You, however, have just gone against him. You've proved yourself as an antagonist in his story, as someone who doesn't get him. What do you think he's gonna tell you now? A bunch of b.s.. Which puts your fate at a crossroads."

"Um...ma'am? What do you mean?" His voice quivered, and he got up from the chair he was sitting in. As if it would intimidate me in some way.

I looked him in the eye unabashedly, smiling and shaking my head. "Well, you see, Al-Hathi, I don't exactly have a purpose for you anymore. If you can't be an informant, you're nothing to me. Plus, you already know too much of my plans…" My musing continued despite his head shaking and frantic looks.

"Please," Dr. Al-Hathi fell to his knees, playing up the poignant effect to the enth degree. "Please, Dr. Wardarc. I won't let you down next time."

There was silence in the room for a while. Eventually, I sighed, shrugging unenthusiastically.

"Fine. I'll let you live this time, Zak. For old time's sake. However," I smiled in that cutthroat sort of way, before barking a laugh. "Don't think those scientists down at the Drawing Board wouldn't be pleased to give you a, um, _makeover_."

Dr. Al-Hathi started shivering, holding his fists to his chest, muttering is thanks under his breath.

I swirled the phosphorescent alcohol in its beautiful glass. It glimmered like a wonderful spring day, like the sunlight cutting through rain splattered trees. I sipped it, the spike of flavor hitting the roof of my mouth with some violent delight.

I turned to one wall of the room, examining the moving pictures. The cameras I had set up in the Baronet household had gone unnoticed so far. It was surprising how oblivious the boy is considering who he used to be. Drinking a bit more _Chardonnay_, I observed the sleeping child with a vague interest. His blankets had been pushed nearly to the end of the bed, his legs tucked up almost to his chin and his arms pulled into the small ball, as if he was trying to make himself as small as possible. His therapy dog, wide awake, watched over her master as he slept, intent and calm, her nose brushing against his ear as he slept. A silent guardian. The boy fidgeted a bit, drawing me back to Juniper himself. His long nose, the bridge flat and the tip sharp, his high cheekbones, accented in the moonlight streaming through his window, and light dappling of freckles across his skin reminded me of someone very familiar to me.

Very, _very_ familiar to me, in fact. Because it _was_ me. The boy looked just like me. I'm surprised none of the doctors have figured out my secret sooner. How I tampered with the mutagen. The real reason I'm so attached to the boy.

I set the glass down so hard and fast that I nearly broke under the pressure. A single tear ran down my face. Strange. Crying isn't something I do.

I looked back up at Juniper, narrowing my eyes angrily, as if daring him to move, to wake up and face the reason he's alive today.

But he didn't. He refused to wake, snuggled safely in his bed, mumbling in his slumber. Eventually, a smile settled on my face.

Nobody needed to know yet. Maybe, in time, if Juniper understood, if he really was remembering, I could tell him.

Until then, he could just be the harmless Doll he was truly meant to be.

oOo

"_She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent." _

_Robert Louis Stevenson, 'The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde'_

oOo

**A/N: Ayyy, anybody remember Wardarc? **

**Fun fact: Al-Hathi wasn't originally going to be a villain. Eventually though, I realized, there's no way he could exist in Juniper's life and **_**not**_ **be a villain. As his psychiatrist, and with Juniper so vulnerable and believing, Al-Hathi could exist to put Wardarc's thoughts inside Juniper's head. Sort of like a bridge between the two minds. Also, I'm surprised nobody has pointed out my absurd use of semicolons. There's a lot of them in this story. Also, credit to Robert Louis Stevenson for the quotes. I'm sure if he was still alive, he would've allowed me to use those quotes. Anyways, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	9. Chapter 8: Ice

***NOTE: This chapter probably drags from the readers point of view. I'm very sorry. Also, it's from the POV of an author who loves NYC, so please don't be triggered at my insults.***

**Chapter 8: Ice**

**Bridget Alon's POV**

**15:01, Wednesday, May 14**

**San Diego, CA**

So hi! Where do I begin?

Oh, I see, you weren't expecting a fourth wall break, especially not from a character you've never heard of before. Yes, there are many characters in this story (many unnecessary, adds the author), but hey, who doesn't love new friends? Let me be yours!

So hey there, I'm Bridget. I'm sixteen, I live in California (though I used to live in Texas!), and I'm the only person on my shift who actually likes scooping ice cream.

When I was a little kid, _The Lactose Bar_ was literally my favorite place in the entire, like, _ever_! My grandma would always take me when she was in town for the summer. She would get pistachio, and I would get their signature flavor, peanut butter cookie dough. Even though it's literally ten minutes away, it's always been a special place for me. Sure, the only part of the store the air conditioner works in are the freezer's themselves, and the toilet in the backroom has a tendency to, um, _fricking explode_, and the people in the shift before me on Thursday afternoons leave a very unpleasant smell of weed and old donuts, but you know, that just adds to the magic!

It seems it's only special for me though, apparently. There's two other kids who work with me (Juniper and Nico) who don't really see the appeal in scooping ice cream for randos for a solid two hours. I mean, they also work Saturdays (I don't), so maybe those shifts are better and they're just sort of sad to be working on weekdays? I dunno. That might be it.

As I handed a little girl her ice cream cone, Nico emerged from the staff room, holding a soda from the refrigerator against his forehead. The electric tinge of the can glimmered with perspiration underneath a layer of his black curls, his eyes shining deep brown in the fluorescent lights. He leaned against the archway leading into the backroom, cocking one hip out.

I pucker my lips, crossing my arms angrily. "Ya know ya shouldn't be in the back durin' rush hour, honey."

"You didn't seem to be having any trouble," he said in his usual deep, brooding voice. One earbud was dangling out of his ears carelessly, the white wire accented against his black t-shirt (which by the way, seemed to be soaked in sweat). As he said this, he gestured to Juniper, who was handing money to a person over the counter with, what seemed to me, some difficulty. His hand was quivering as he did it, and he was looking down at the pink and white tiled floor rather than the customer. He murmured a thank you (which, by the way, was nowhere near as professional as the approved dialogue), and retreated to the back wall, giving me a look that read 'hey, you wanna take the next one?'. Or, I _think_ that's what it read.

Yeah, Juniper's a bit...unique. He goes to a different school that Nico and I, so I don't know if he's like that 24/7, but if so, I ain't judging. He's always muttering to himself, and he's all twitchy and stuff when it's too quiet. He always has this faraway look in his eyes, like he can see something we can't.

All I did was give him a small smile before going to the counter to ask the next customer what he wanted. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Juniper sort of stumble his way into the back room. As he did so, he knocked his temple on the frame of the doorway, sort of falling the rest of the way into the room. I gave Nico a look, but he sort of coughed a laugh as it happened, shaking his head and grinning.

As I turned to rinse off the scooper with warm water, feeling kind of anxious, I heard a loud _crash_ come from the back. My adrenaline rushing, I shoved the scooper into Nico's hands, not caring if he got the order right or not, and went into the back room.

Juniper had his back turned to me, and was pressing his hands against the wall. His head was lowered, his jet black hair dripping over his forehead and hiding his face like an ominous cobweb. For a moment, I felt afraid that he was going to run himself into the wall in anger, or frustration, or something like that. He was still shaking, and his fingers kept twitching, like he wanted to curl them into fists. Even though he couldn't have been looking at me, he knew it was me the moment I entered (I mean, I've never been the stealthiest).

"Bridget, please, can you give me a moment." His voice sounded deeper than it usually did. It was threatening. I felt scared.

"Um...Juniper?" I asked, fidgeting with my hands a bit. "Are ya good?"

Juniper whirled around, his eyes gleaming with anger. "Am I good? Of course I'm not good!" He haphazardly kicked a broken box of waffle cones on the ground (well, _that's_ what the crash was).

"I'm not good, because to be good, you would need to be useful. To be good, you have to be a functioning member of society. Clearly _that's_ not happening any time soon." He started running his fingers through his hair. His eyes were so wide that I thought they were going to pop out of his head.

He started wringing his hands in a very stressful manner, his breath racing. "No, no, I'm not good. I'm desperate. I'm so effing desperate, Bridget." I just sort of stood there awkwardly. I mean, it was obvious this was a very private moment, but for some reason, it felt like I couldn't move my legs. "I…" He trailed off, taking some deep breaths to try and calm himself down. He stood there, staring off at the wall, doing absolutely nothing.

I glanced back at the doorway, and saw Nico standing there. When he met my eyes, he rolled his own, swirling his pointer finger around his ear. You know, the thing people do when they're calling someone else cuckoo.

"He just wants attention, Bridge," he muttered, grabbing my wrist and pulling me away from Juniper. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Juniper was watching me as I was being pulled away. We kept eye contact for what felt like way too long before I ultimately looked away.

Juniper was mumbling to himself like a crazy conspiracy theorist who had had too much caffeine. Maybe that's what he was. "Casey Jones...Casey Jones...Casey Jones…"

My extroverted senses started tingling. Sure, maybe I am known for butting into conversations where I am not wanted nor needed, and he may just be looking for attention, but if that's the case, then he's got mine.

"Like the railroad engineer?" I turned and asked, too intrigued to watch my mouth.

Nico shook his head and sat down on a small stool positioned near the refrigerator full of toppings. "No, no, not that. I think what crackhead here is talking about is that dingus who got beat up by a mutant in New York the other day."

Ah, New York. You love it or you hate it. I personally am on the former end of the spectrum, even though I've never been. As a thespian, I'm practically required to love it though (everything there is just so...I don't know...not like the rest of the country? Quirky?).

Nico, as if he'd read my mind, shook his head and laughed. "Come back to earth, Texas." Acting as though he was thinking about it for a second, Nico paused, gazing into the distance sarcastically before grinning to himself. "You know what, actually, you can just stay there." He barked a laugh, crossing his legs and undoing another button on his shirt.

"You wanna shut up?" I asked, trying to hide the burning in my face.

"New York is a craphole, girl," he said, shrugging and pouting out his lower lip as if he felt sorry for me.

"Don't say that!" Juniper shouted, raising his voice and whipping his head around quickly to face us properly.

Nico held up his hands defensively. "Well then, if you're going to be so defensive of New York, give us a reason."

"I…" Juniper sat down across the room from the two of us, cupping his head in his hands and resting his elbows on his knees. "I don't- I don't have one," he grumbled defeatedly, eyes averted towards the ground.

Scoffing, Nico stood. "That's exactly what I'd expect out of someone like you. You say things without thinking first. You make assumptions about the quality of something before doing any actual research."

Before I could but in that Nico was being hypocritical, Juniper stood, his hands curled into fists. "How do you know that?"

"Because I've been," Nico spat in Juniper's face, pacing around the room in dramatic circles. "And let me tell you, that city is one, big, rotten apple. Hobos, scammers, those diseased mutants. Yeah, I said it you alien-lover," he literally pointed in Juniper's face, his face a mocking scowl, his voice the growl of a taunting dog. "Sure, some of them may look pretty wicked, but they're disgusting, the lot of 'em. The idea of being something that's half human and half animal is just disgusting. It's against nature."

"Or half human and half plant," I interjected, but from the boys' vicious glares, my input was clearly not wanted.

Juniper, furious, leapt to his feet. "It's not your appearance that makes you human, Nico!"

"Oh yeah? What are you gonna reveal next? That you're not really human? You really want me to believe someone as pathetic as you could be special? Could be _rare_, or _treasured_?"

Juniper stared incredulously, his face twitching dangerously. His expression was as cold as ice, his glare holding a special form of anger I had never seen in a human being before. "Nico Rodriguez, you have no idea what you're talking about." He surveyed his audience before narrowing his eyes bitterly. "I can't believe anybody would ever want a second chance. Would ever want to do anything over again. I-I just…"

Covering his face with his hands, Juniper started shaking. Nico gave a small, spiteful giggle, daintily covering his mouth with one hand. At that, Juniper removed his hands from his head, his face contorted into a signal of pure distress and misery, tears and spit flying everywhere as he spoke.

"I just wish I was never me! I wish I was never Juniper!"

And with that, he spun, stormed out of the back room, and right out the front door of the ice cream parlor.

oOoOoOoOo

**A/N: So, I know that a lot of these are run-on sentences. As a grammar fan, it pained me to write them. However, I think that that's just part of Bridget's personality. She never really stops. Also, no, Bridget and Nico are not shipped (1. She's shipped with someone else, I planned that from the beginning, and 2. It would be too much of a gender swapped version of Jaune and Weiss from early era RWBY) They may be annoying. I dunno. They probably are. And yes, they are important later. Don't worry, Nico is not just here to bully June. I'm not sinking **_**that**_ **far into stereotypes. **

**Also, no, they're not wearing Scoops Ahoy uniforms during all this. Y'all know this is ripped off of Stranger Things. Also, please don't hate me for giving Bridget the most stereotypical Southern accent of all time. I hope you all had a very happy New Year, and please excuse me for the delay in posting this chapter. It took me a long time, I had the worst writer's block. Thank you for anyone who actually reads this story, and as always, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	10. Chapter 9: Surf

**Chapter 9: Surf**

**Alice Snow's POV**

**16:32, Friday, May 16**

**San Diego, CA**

I'm not sure if this is a rule of thumb or not, but you shouldn't let your distressed friend go surfing, no matter how beautiful it is outside. And you should _especially_ not try and _convince_ him to go with you.

That was our first mistake. The golden sun danced off the albino crest of a wave that was soon to curve over a number of bodies, all of which were the size of ants from my point of view on shore. Whooping and screaming echoed out over open water, the vibrant hues of the surfboards like the tiny specks in a kaleidoscope.

The sand was just a soft powder underneath my feet, the tall grass blowing in the wind. A gull waddled his way over to me, staring expectantly with a pair of black, beady eyes. I looked away, trying to avoid his stare. He squawked once, cocking his head to the side, and I caved, throwing a potato chip. I should be immune to them, having lived near the ocean my whole life, but I really can't help it. I'm a sucker for birds.

Juniper was sitting upon his surfboard far out to sea, bobbing up and over the waves. He was just barely an etch on the horizon, framed by the blue and white sky that served as our current ceiling. I bit down on my bottom lip with my two front teeth. Juniper's mother didn't initially want him out today. She said the waves were too large, and after all the drama of the week, she wasn't sure if he would be able to handle it.

I don't think she needed to worry about the waves part. He didn't even seem to be actually trying to surf. He was just sitting there, staring out at the open waves. I really hope he still wasn't thinking about what I said to him on Monday. We hadn't spoken since then; okay, we'd spoken, but not _really_. God, that would be embarrassing. I hope I didn't really offend him.

_You probably did. You're great at that. _I twisted my hair around my finger, narrowing my eyes in concentration as I thought. Poeu came from behind me, stole a potato chip, and looked in the same direction I was.

"Yeah," Poeu said, as if he could read my mind. "Yeah, he's still pretty messed up."

"Did we do something?" I asked him, out of impulse. "Is there a reason he's mad at us?"

Poeu stayed quiet for a moment. He had a sort of peculiar expression on his face, his lips pursed together and his eyes trained forwards. "Like, here's the thing, Al. Just because June isn't talking to you and I doesn't mean we did anything wrong. He's got his own problems, and we've gotta leave that part up to him and him alone." Poeu chuckled quietly, his mouth forming a small smile. "Honestly, I can't decide if it's self conscious of you to assume he's mad specifically at you, or selfish."

"Well, that's a bit rude of you to judge if I'm being selfish or not when I'm genuinely concerned about my friend." I snap, pulling the crinkled bag away from Poeu as he reached for another.

Poeu raised an eyebrow. "I think it's a bit rude of you to say you're concerned about your 'friend' when all you're really worried about is if he's got the hots for you or not."

Damn. Poeu may act like the dumb friend sometimes but…

"I know what you're thinking," Poeu said, fake-flattered. "I'm a literal superhuman, Alice. I can't believe you underestimate my power."

...eh. He's still Poeu.

I turned to face the open water. Juniper was getting scarily far away, drifting out into the open sea. I wrinkled my nose, pulling my legs up to my chest.

"I'm worried about him though, Poeu. For real."

"I know. I think I'm always a bit worried about that kid," Poeu gave me a small, sad smile, something that was very unlike him. He looked almost wistful for a second, like an old man does when he's remembering something. It's pretty hard to remember he's older than all of us most of the time, as we're usually the ones responsible over him and his antics.

His expression changed as quick as lighting though, and he went back to regular old, happy-go-lucky Poeu. "But you know, I shouldn't do that. He's got Erica. Tabs. He doesn't need us to worry about him. He can handle himself."

oOoOoOoOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**16:37, Friday, May 16**

**San Diego, CA**

_I can't handle this anymore._

The water sloshed over the front of the surfboard, running between my fingers and chilling my skin in small areas. I dipped my arm into the water, watching the prisms of light dance around my submerged appendage.

I pulled my arm back up, and turned to face the downtown part of San Diego, the culture hub everybody thinks of when they think of Southern California. Glass spires reaching into the air, with crystalline bulbs winking to alert low flying planes of their existence, cars crawling across the highways like asteroids in a field; dangerous, but only if you make contact with them.

A short, cut-off scream echoed from behind me. I turned around for a split second, watched the coastline. At the very edge of America, the only known world for most of the people here, teens rode high on the turquoise peaks of waves, hollering in victory like it was the last day of the world. Palm trees that were at least forty feet tall were suddenly smaller than my pinky finger. The houses were just pastel boxes with little, square windows, shimmering in different, rainbow hues like stained glass. The sand was just a thin strip of yellow-white behind me, umbrellas only the size of strawberry seeds. Okay. Maybe I was a bit farther out than I thought.

But I can't help it. It's so much more serene out here than it is there. When you're far out on the water, you can experience the beauty of the city without having to deal with the people who live there. The overwhelmingness of being expected to be social. The only voice you have to listen to is the lulling cry of the ocean waves. Not the ones of doctors, or teachers, or the ones inside your head that tell you how to think, what to say, that tell you to try and be as normal as possible. The only thing that spirals are the clouds; mighty, delicate, perfect.

I inhaled through my nose, absorbing the saltiness of the sea in one breath, remembering the first time I ever came to this beach. It was quite a long time ago now. The sun was still low in the East, the sea lions that barked at people as they went by lounging on the rocks and waiting for the sun to rise, the baby's breath and forget-me-nots tangling with the seagrass in the low breeze. Tabetha had somehow convinced me to get out of bed early enough that no one would be there. Her own board, bright red with a singular white stripe down the center, was in her arms, on her lap, while I had the one she had used when she was a teenager.

_My father gave me that board,_ she had told me, a smile on her face as she sat down on one of the only smooth rocks on the beach, a good distance away from the water. _He was the one who taught me how to surf. I think you would've liked him._

I simply listened for a while, longing for more of her knowledge. Among the people who talked to me truthfully, like they actually cared I was listening, was Tabs. That group of people has actually shrunk pretty recently, yet she still remains one of the most loyal people I know.

I don't remember saying much of anything that day; I was too overwhelmed, somewhat fascinated with the featheriness of the sand, chill from being bathed moonlight all night, as well as the distinct scent that I couldn't quite place yet as salt water. It had only been about a month after I had lost my memories. Back then, I got distracted by basically everything (it's still pretty hard to keep my focus. Head injuries suck like that), so even though I heard Tabs clearly, my mind was on other things.

_Now, don't expect to be doing a whole lot of actual surfing,_ she had explained. _In fact, expect to be doing a whole lot of falling instead. I know, it's not as fun as actual surfing, but you need to be able to figure out how to get your balance. And keep it. That's the reason I chose to teach you on a day with much less waves. _

I only vaguely heard her, poking a small hole in the sand with the tip of my finger. A crab that had been scuttling around ran in the opposite direction at the caving in of the ground, moving at an extremely fast rate. Surprised by his sudden change of direction, I had watched as he ran over my foot, my eyes following his every movement.

_You aren't hearing a word I'm saying, are you._ It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Her hair, always in a loose ponytail, was draped over her shoulder, making small waves of chestnut. She raised an eyebrow, and I smiled sheepishly. She laughed a bit before explaining more (it wasn't actually really a laugh. She kind of jerked a bit, but she smiled as she did it).

Tabs held up a thin cord. _Okay, Juniper, literally one of the most important parts of surfing here; this leash attaches to your leg at all times. Got that?_

I had stared at it for a while before answering. _You didn't tell me about that,_ I had said in a very simple, sort of obtuse manner. _Why?_

_I didn't for a reason, Juniper. I knew it would've turned you off of surfing. It's only there so you can't get separated from your board and...yeah, so that doesn't happen. I'm telling you about it now though._

I don't like being confined by anything. Not even if it was supposed to keep me safe. Memories of week after week in the hospital, the margins of movement set by the wires that confined me within reach of their machines, doctors staring through glass windows as if afraid of getting too close within my reach. Not entirely understanding why I was there, but knowing that the people who wore the white coats were condescending and derogatory. Waking up not knowing who you are and what's going on, then being trapped in a room with two-faced people who both asked you to have faith in them and treated you as if you were a two year old as fragile as trust was tough. Visits from Tabs and Erica (especially Erica, when she wasn't on business trips to Washington D.C.) had kept me going. I had paid my dues, taken my Phenytoin dutifully and frequently, gone in to checkups at the hospital closer to my new home, missing school to do so, and yet, the hospital I had awoken in still found ways to haunt me in my new life.

And yet, when I looked out across the ocean that morning, I felt it might be worth it. The first hints of a morning sun were crawling up behind us, turning the Western sky a shade of light lavender. On the other side of the sky, the moon still floated high above us, periwinkle hues hugging the celestial body until it was nearly invisible among the many purple and pink tones, but not quite so. It was weird to think that that moon hanging there in the sky was the same one that pulled the tides we were right next to, the same one that thought it was strong enough to steal the water, but only managed to make the waves that surfers ride on.

I looked at Tabs, my gut feeling an unbalanced mixture uncertain and excited. _I-I think I'll be okay with that._

Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. _Superb. Let's get started, little man._

She was right. It was mostly falling that first day. We practiced on the sand a lot at first (while, she probably didn't need the practice as much as me, who had never surfed in my life). Going over the motions on how to stand up on the board without accidentally killing myself, listening to her information on if I was a natural-footer or a goofy-footer. At first it didn't seem too hard. When we got out on the water, it was an entirely different story however. Over and over again, I would think that maybe I was getting it a tiny bit, my feet would go flying out from underneath me and I would fall into the water once more.

I didn't really mind that part though. Being underwater was unlike anything I had ever felt before. The crispness of the silence starkly contrasted with my near inability to see was an entirely new ordeal. It felt like what dreaming might be like if my sleeping state wasn't plagued by nightmares.

Eventually, I learned how to surf, and furthermore, how to not fall off. But still, the feeling of being caught underneath the waves in a patch of dim sunlight seemed so appealing, in a place where I don't need to remember and don't want to forget.

I arrived back in my own skin, the memories leaving my head feeling numb and full of foam. I continued to see the penetrating blue of the sky, and feel the rhythmic pushing of the waves. And deep inside of me, there remained a thrumming beat that begged to go underwater.

It was sort of like an out of body experience. Watching myself do the actions, somewhat questioning them in my brain, but letting my instincts take the reins. Pulling my feet up onto the board, undoing the strap around my ankle. I never wanted it there anyways. Gazing into the deeps for a split second before I let myself fall over sideways, not even bothering to draw in a real deep breath before.

Bubbles tried to push me upwards, but I fought back. I let my body go entirely limp, trying not to feel anything as the water closed in around me. Flashes of sunlight broke through the Pacific waves until I closed my eyes, settling into a black abyss. And then it was silent.

It was peaceful, and more importantly, painless. I wanted to stay down there forever.

But just as I thought I would drift off to sleep, I felt something latch onto my wrist.

I wanted to open my eyes, but I couldn't. Something was stopping me. It was like a hand, a human hand, had wrapped itself around my wrist, twisted it, then started to pull me downwards. Down to where the water is colder and the creatures who live there are much less inviting. Exactly like in my recurring dream.

Unlike in my dream, I struggled, but it was like how when you're asleep your limbs feel like they're made of gelatin for skin and muscles and uncooked spaghetti for bones. Even though I wasn't strong enough to even remotely break their grip, whatever force it was dragging me down instead put the crook of their elbow around my neck and started pulling me down that way. Instead of trying to swim upwards, I then had to deal with them choking me. I grabbed at their arm, bubbles escaping from my mouth, blindly attempting a getaway that didn't work in any way whatsoever.

It felt like it went on like that for forever, entering new realms of sightlessness and glacial temperatures. The sun felt further away than ever. But whoever it was bringing me down here must've had a reason, because they didn't stop. They wanted me down here. Part of me was curious. Part of me was terrified. None of me was even trying to resist anymore.

But I flipped out when it abandoned me in the darkness. As an amnesiac, being abandoned in the darkness is something I'm all too familiar with. I spun, reaching out, searching blindly with a wild nature for the invisible siren, but felt nothing. And for the first time since I was dragged down here, I opened my eyes.

And saw a kitchen. And smelled something delicious. And saw hands that were a weird color and shape working on something. They held a knife, a knife that was chopping vegetables.

"_I love your special soup, Papa_." The words came out of my mouth, even though I didn't say them. The voice of a Juniper who knew himself, who upon coming into his existence knew his name and purpose. A Juniper who was at _least_ seven or eight years younger, possibly more.

Young me looked up without me willing myself to. I saw a face, but it was obscured, kind of glitchy. Looking at it made my brain light up on fire, but since there was no controlling younger me, I couldn't exactly do anything about it. A thrumming curiosity burned ferrally throughout my soul, but the denial for anything pain related in my brain begged me to look away. But there was no refusing part of the issue; that a fraction of me recognized the face.

_Well, younger me just called him 'Papa', did you expect him to be a complete stranger?_

The face smiled, and looked down at me. Younger me loved the recognition, but my own brain ignited. I felt a need to know whoever it was, but at the same time, a physical agony when I looked at them.

"_I'm glad you're excited for lunch, my son, especially seeing as I noticed yesterday that you didn't want to eat anything. Why is that?"_

Little Juniper didn't have an answer for Papa. He just stared as if he was too shocked to answer the question. He had thought he had gotten away without eating. He had thought Papa wouldn't notice.

Little Juniper started rubbing his toe into the ground awkwardly, not realizing it only confirmed his next sentence would be a complete fabrication. "_I just felt a bit sick. That's all, Papa."_

Papa crouched down, looking into his son's eyes. My eyes. He stroked...I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it was some kind of a beard as he considered how truthful little Juniper was. Little June felt bad for lying. Heck, I felt kind of bad for lying to this complete stranger who I definitely knew.

"_You know 59()7&, you do tend to skip a meal whenever you're feeling upset. Is that the case now?"_

I was taken aback at the sudden censorship. The memory continued on without me, with younger me continuing to fib, but my mind was elsewhere, curious and exhilarated by the possibility of what could've been there, nay, what I'm sure was there; my name. My name before it was Juniper.

_But why would it be redacted like that? It felt too perfect, too neat, like a cuss edited out of a tv show._

_Unless that's what it was supposed to be like. Unless someone else removed it on purpose._ Maybe whoever it was was the same person who made sure that the face was blurry. My head was buzzing with the concept of some other force removing my memories. The doctors at the hospital were never really sure of what caused the amnesia, after all.

_No, that's not possible. Nobody has the power to remove memories, especially not specific ones like this._

Back in the past, younger me finally cracked as he jumped up onto a small, red stool. He stared at the grey surface, running one finger along a crack, winding like a river across a country. The crack, to me, was familiar, but the hand...my finger looked different. Not just different. My skin was an entirely different color, but I couldn't tell what. It appeared darker than what it is now...but don't people usually gain melanin as they get older, rather than losing it? On the inside, my stomach started churning, my thoughts whirling like a hurricane to process everything in time.

Swiveling the seat back and forth, younger me looked back up at Papa (once again causing an earthquake in my mind). "_I was just wondering, Papa...why are we like the way we are?"_

He smiled and put down the knife he was holding. "_89%#2!, you already know the answer to that question. I've told you many times before. When you were very young, far before you could remember, our family-"_

"_Was exposed to some kind of weird che-."_ The flashback stopped entirely, the mouth I couldn't control making the sound a computer makes when a disk is stuck in the drive. Then it snapped back, starting right back where we left off. "_I know, Papa. I'm just wondering why it did what it did. It could've done anything. So why are we…"_ Little Juniper gestured around the room (which seemed to be some kind of kitchen), as if to say that the world I had been transported to after going underwater was caused by some kind of strange...I don't know, thing. Honestly, I'll take any answer at this point. Maybe I'm doing hard drugs and just don't know it. If that theory is true, I'll have the whole set. Retrograde and Anterograde.

Papa game and sat down beside younger me. "Kodomo_, there is a story from Japan I would like to tell you. Of course, you have heard this one many times, but I feel you need a reminder. Do you remember the tale of when _Amaterasu _went missing?"_

Little Juniper nodded, even if I had no idea what the story was in real time.

"Amaterasu_, the sun goddess, had gotten into an argument with _Susanoo-no-Mikoto_, the god of the sea and its storms. _Susanoo-no-Mikoto _had been so furious with his sister that he ended the fight by brutally killing one of her maidens."_

Little Juniper shook his head very quickly. "_Not how you deal with arguments."_

Papa gave a small chuckle and put a hand on my/little Juju's head. "_No, that's not how you deal with them, my son. Now, _Amaterasu _fell into a deep depression, disappearing into a magical cave. When the sun goddess withdrew from the earth into her celestial shelter, no one, not even the other gods were able to call her back down to earth. Without her, there was no daytime. There was no light. _

"_This all changed when _Ame-No-Uzume_, the goddess of mirth and meditation showed all the other gods her own attempt to wake _Amaterasu_."_ Little Juniper rested his head on his Papa's shoulder, staring up at his face. I was left to contemplate the meaning of all of this. Why was I seeing this now rather than before? Why was it this memory in particular, as opposed to any other?

Papa started stroking the younger me's spine in a very parental fashion, smiling with the same look Erica looks at me with. "Ame-No-Uzume, _in her attempt to get _Amaterasu _to rise, wore an _obi _of club moss and dress of _kazura, _lit sacred bonfires, and after all these steps, got up onto an overturned washtub and began to dance. This is the first kagura ever performed, my son. Many said her solution to the problem was very unorthodox. The rest of the gods agreed. They laughed at her. They thought that her effort at resolution would only end with more failure. But she didn't stop. She kept dancing. For hours on end, she danced on that overturned washtub, and they only continued to laugh at the young goddess. _

"_Do you know what happens at the end of the story, my son?" _

"Amaterasu _wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so she left the cave to see the dance. The other gods all felt bad about teasing _Ame-No-Uzume_, and after the sun came back they...all had a dance party." _

Papa chuckled, a small smile barely visible on his face. "_My son, I am not entirely sure that's how the story goes, but that is a wonderful alternate ending to the story." _He raised an eyebrow (I couldn't really tell. His face was too obscured) before continuing. "_Do you know why I told you this story?"_ Little me shook my head, looking up at Papa.

"_Because I want you to remember that no matter what way you are, human or otherwise, you should have confidence in yourself. Be proud of who you are, 7&64*5. If anything makes you feel that you are less than anyone else, in any way, please, tell me."_

And I found myself wishing I could tell him. Tell this mysterious stranger from the distant past everything I've been wanting to tell everyone: my lack of people I could trust, the loathing of both my current and past self, need to be needed. But I was just forced to sit there as little Juniper nodded, a husk, a memory oblivious to the plight going on inside his head.

"_Would you like to help me make _Butajiru_, my son?"_ He got up from his seat and started towards the cutting board and it's matching knife again. But as little me nodded, everything started to go all fuzzy. On the inside, my heart started palpitating as if I were going to have an anxiety attack. My vision started sliding sideways, like a collapsing fan. In my ears rang the sound of a thousand mosquitos buzzing. It was almost as if for a split second all of my senses had been turned up to the maximum setting…

...and then…

...were turned off all of the sudden.

oOoOoOoOo

**Tabetha Baronet's POV**

**17:38, Friday, May 16**

**San Diego, CA**

My daughters talked over each other about their school days in the backseat, the dog in between them. Neither of them were listening to each other. But we weren't listening either.

Erica was driving. Her pale grey-blue eyes were trained ahead, her hands clenched around her wheel so tightly that the skin around her knuckles had been stretched into translucency. I had just gotten home from work when they told us. I wasn't at all ready for anything like this.

There was nothing we could really do to prepare for the call. We just sort of had to usher our kids into the car and leave.

I'm not really sure what I expected when it comes to getting a call from the hospital.

But I don't think I expected them to tell me that my son had been underwater for over twenty minutes and had almost drowned.

oOoOoOoOo

**A/N**

**Dang, Ju-Ju's tripping out on something serious. **

**Okay, no, not really. I wasn't really sure how to do that scene where he goes into a memory, I'm not good at transitions, but I'm practicing. Sorry for not updating in, like, two months, I was really, really, really busy, but now we're back at it again (at Krispy Kremes), so I guess I'll be updating normally. I thought it would be kinda interesting to show both a very bygone memory as well as a very recent memory, along with the contrast of the sort of parental figures who feature in them (and hey, every almost historic Japanese apocalypse needs to end with a dance party). Thank you to anyone who still reads this story, I love all y'all! I promise it's (most likely) going somewhere. As always, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	11. Chapter 10: Mother

**Chapter 10: Mother**

**Tabetha Baronet's POV**

**23:34, Friday, May 15**

**San Diego, CA**

I almost drowned once as a kid. I don't remember how old I was exactly. I've been swimming about as long as I've been standing. The oceans of the world served as my favorite pastime up until I learned how wonderful pottery is (I mean, even before then I kinda liked to shape stuff in the dirt, so maybe it's always been my favorite pastime).

Anyways, me and my best friend Cher - yeah, she was named after the singer - decided 'okay, yeah, it's a great idea for us kids to go down to the beach without any adult supervision'. Our parents were at work, and it was a really hot summer, as it always was back in Florida, so we just thought it would be okay to take a quick dip in the Atlantic.

That's how it was every summer with Cher and I. We would bike for miles down the most dangerous paths we could find in our tiny, decrepit town (sometimes wearing helmets, sometimes not), squeezing through cracks between buildings lined with barbed wire and broken bottles. We would challenge all the neighbor boys to competitions where we would see who could climb the highest in what we called the 'Crow's Nest', which we would then jump from into the Matanzas River. God, we thought we were so cool, me and Cher. We were the snarky, bad-A female trope before it became cool. We were Obi-Wan's last hope. We were the heroes Bonnie Tyler was holding out for.

Well, we were actually a couple of nerdy friends who played pretend a little too late into middle school to actually be taken seriously. But let's take it back a few steps, because in this story, we were just eight or nine year olds on a really hot morning.

We didn't bring our boards or anything like that. It wasn't the right day for surfing. All we wanted was to go swimming. The ocean was beautiful that day. The thin strip of sand was defended by a line of mangroves. They kept the view of cars from us, but the sound of the highway still roared past the beach. Neither of us cared that there was no lifeguard on duty. Our parents knew where we liked to go to the beach, so what was the big deal? We grew up in a small town; if you wanted to find someone badly enough, you did.

The ocean was warmer than usual, despite the heavy shade from the large grey clouds hanging above our heads. There were only small waves, pushing me back to shore as if a warning of what would come.

Cher and I raced each other to the shore from far out in the water. We went hunting for moon jellies in the shallows, where they were beginning to wash up. We barely noticed as the tide started eating the beach, as the clouds above us got darker and darker.

So then we decided to have the dumbest competition ever: let's see who can get to the buoy fastest. Now those things may look close in movies, but the closest is usually about a hundred meters away from shore. Of course, we had done it before, but never with such a stormy-looking sky against such large waves. We blissfully swam out to the orange landmark that called to us from the open ocean, ignoring the cloud formations above us.

I won the race, for your information. But that doesn't matter right now. And it didn't matter even then when it finally got through our heads that a storm was brewing. We had misjudged when the storm was going to arrive and we paid the price for it.

Things didn't go too great after that.

Cher and I tried to fight our way back to shore, but the heavy waves that rose up behind us refused to stop, constantly pushing us underwater. The seawater stung in our nostrils, the rain like tiny bullets hitting the watery barrier above our heads. Everything after that was kind of blurry. I vaguely remember being confused. Being frightened. Desperately wishing, and wondering, and not wanting to die.

And I'm still thankful to this day that I didn't. If my dad didn't come to the beach looking for us after work, we definitely would have drowned. He had seen the clouds in the sky and had come looking for us in all the places he thought we may be.

I remember a limited amount of things from that day. Not what he said to us, or how long I was punished for. But I do remember the look in his eyes when he dragged our limp bodies out of the ocean, his hair and beard flying in the wind, sand clinging to his bare feet. He looked at me with this intense panic and fear, as if he had just witnessed his worst fear coming true. He was shaking worse than the trees around us.

My parents got divorced when I was tiny, so to me, a girl who never knew her mom until she had graduated college, my dad was the most confident, most fearless man on earth, especially to fourth grade me. He was never scared of anything.

Seeing him so shaken was what made me decide I was never going to be a parent. I had never wanted to anyways, before that, but that was the confirmation for me. I never wanted to feel the fear my dad was feeling. I never wanted to love anything as much as a parent loves their child because I didn't want to lose it.

So I kept playing my games. I kept being a child. Until I couldn't. I was faced with the prospect of being an adult, being a grown up. Getting married. And having a family.

Erica adored the idea of being a mother. Nay, she was near the point of obsession with it. With her bob haircut, floral dresses and tendency to cut the crusts off of sandwiches for other people, she reminded me of those 1950s moms- you know, the ones that advertise Moco Coco and stuff. At first, I thought it was a kind of harmless fun fantasy. And then I realized, 'Oh. Dam. She's _shockingly_ serious about this'. And she was. The woman I married wanted nothing more than to be the best mother ever. And I wanted nothing more than to avoid being a parent.

People like Erica are hard to talk to, and even harder to disagree with. We fought over it a bit. My anxieties clashed with her wishes. It didn't get too ugly, don't worry, but eventually, Erica was crowned the winner (aka, she talked me into it). Before too long, I was pregnant.

And yes, I know what you're thinking. '...How?...' It's a very logical question, with a logical answer; sperm donor. Or, you know, the fancier term of 'sperm insemination'. I was the one who chose to carry the child because I thought maybe if I did that, it would make me feel a bit more… well… _maternal_ (don't judge me, I'm not good with words).

And it worked. Which was exactly what I was afraid of. When Sunshine was born, I felt like the nine months of my life I had shared with her were my strongest, most vulnerable, and easily some of the most important. I adored her more than I can possibly say from the moment she was born. I still do. Five years later, we adopted a beautiful three-year-old girl from Andorra, who is our glittering Opal. She and her sister find new ways to make me smile every day.

And for the past two years, it's just been the four of us. Your classic, 2.5 children, nuclear family. A little unconventional in our own ways, but about as perfect as we can get.

And then Juniper comes into our lives.

Let me tell you about a situation; a kid wakes up in the hospital, has no idea where they are, has no idea who he is or what his name is, and no parents come for him when they put out a notice that there is an amnesiac teenage boy in said hospital. When does something like that happen? How does something like that happen? And why? And why, of all people, were Erica and I chosen by destiny to take him into our care?

It doesn't take a genius to see that Juniper is a sick kid. If you have two clonic seizures in a week, including one out on the water, there is something _incredibly_ wrong. Juniper has been tested for epilepsy more than once, in several different ways; they've done EEGs, CT scans, MRIs, SPECTs. They _have_ found brain damage, of course, in the hippocampus, but that is more likely related to his amnesia than his seizures. He's been taking Phenytoin every day, three times a day, and they _keep happening_.

And it's not just the seizures that's his problem. Back when he first lost his memory, he had a whole plethora of other problems he doesn't even like to think about; a misaligned jaw which left him on a most liquid diet (which he is still getting off of), one shoulder slightly higher than the other, causing him constant back pain, and several broke and/or fractured bones. And even though most of those problems have already been dealt with, the seizures just keep coming back for more.

And as you can see, they've sort of reached an extreme with Juniper nearly losing his life in the exact same way as me, almost thirty years later.

So there I was, sitting in the hospital at 11:30, eyes carefully trained on June. He had woken up a bit before, and seemed oddly insistent on not falling back asleep. Erica, however, had other plans…

"You need to go to sleep right now, honey." Her arms were crossed over her chest and her eyebrows were knit together. She had been pacing in front of Juniper's bed ever since she got back from dropping our daughters off at my mother's house twenty minutes ago. Her heels rhythmically clicked against the linoleum floor of the hospital. "This is the second seizure you've had this _week_. God, Juniper…" she was quiet for a moment as if letting it sink in.

"_God_, Doll, the second this week," she repeated, turning to face the two of us. She then looked directly at me. "You know, this wouldn't have happened if we had stopped him from surfing. Which, by the way, you clearly can't do anymore."

Juniper, who had been sitting in silence for a while, looked up from the small, crumpled piece of paper in his hand (I'm pretty sure it was a drawing, but I couldn't be too sure) with a jolt of panic. "What? No, no, Mom, please-"

"I will hear none of that, June. Surfing is clearly too dangerous for you. I mean, look at yourself! You have a 103 fever, pneumonia, you refused to eat dinner…"

"Well that was just some temporary nausea, I-"

"You're sick, and you're not surfing again. You will go to therapy more often and for more hours at a time, and we need to put you on more medications. _Clearly_ the Phenytoin isn't doing all that it's supposed to."

"Why not just stop having him take it all together then?" I asked, rubbing my forehead as I watched the two of them.

"NO!" Erica shouted out of nowhere. Both me and Juniper jumped at her sudden outburst. Her expression changed, and it seemed like she was trying to draw herself back in, though her eyes remained dark and threatening. Cold, almost.

"He's been on the Phenytoin for six months already. To take him off of it this sudden wouldn't be good for him. If it came to that, we would have to do it slowly… You know, so I have enough time to make a plan," Erica explained, her hands making wild, exaggerated motions as she tried to explain her thoughts.

Juniper's expression was nearing frantic. "I don't care what medicine I take, I don't care what treatment you put me on, just don't make me live in a fishbowl again!"

Erica sat down on the side of his bed daintily, and put one long finger under his chin and she crossed her legs. She lifted Juniper's head so their eyes met, leaving me feeling as if I were intruding on a very intimate and private moment between the two of them. "Doll. You're surfing, your friends, none of that matters as much as your life. I will not have you kill yourself just to get some fleeting enjoyment. You will stay inside, and you will not disagree with me. Not after everything I've done for you."

Shaking his head, Juniper moved to get out of the bed. "Mom, I know more than anyone that you're trying to protect me, but living inside forever isn't really living."

Erica suddenly turned to me. "Fine. We'll have Tabs be our tiebreaker; Tabs, do you vote we let our son be careless and _die_, or do we do the reasonable thing?"

"Mom!" June cried, his eyebrows flying upwards in surprise.

Even though both of them were clearly passionate about their own arguments, I only hesitated for a moment before answering; I knew what the right decision was before I even announced it.

"Juniper," I started, prompting him to glance over at me hopefully.

"Juniper, I'm afraid your mother is right."

Absolute heartbreak. That is the only way to describe Juniper's expression. He slouched over (revealing the small height that his right shoulder had over his left), resting his elbows on his knees and hanging his head dejectedly.

"I'm sorry. I understand you want to go out and live your life. But…" I looked to Erica for guidance at what to say, but she was simply staring out the window, into the parking lot of the hospital far below us. She looked pleased.

"If you don't let yourself heal, there will be no life to live." Juniper continued to stare at his feet, refusing to meet my eyes. "This won't last forever, I promise you. Maybe now is just not the right time for you to get all of the adventuring out of your system." I said with a half-chuckle. Nobody laughed. With a thick air of awkwardness around me, I cleared my throat and continued. "After high school's over, Juju, you'll be able to live wherever you want, and go to whatever school you want, and make your own decisions. But at least for right now, we're gonna half to help choose what's best for you."

Erica shot a look at me, as if she was trying to let me know something. Her eyebrows arched and knit together, and she shook her head.

Juniper rubbed his arms, cringing and raising his shoulders as if trying to hide his face. "Sure. Whatever. Can I have a few moments to myself?"

"Of course, dearest," Erica told him with a thin-lipped smile, and she laid a single hand daintily on his shoulder. She waited before peeling it off, as if it hurt her to separate from him. I followed her, but went for a rather different approach; trying not to meet Juniper in the eyes at all. I know he blamed me for his life being uprooted.

Erica and I went a little bit down the hall, our footsteps echoing in the almost entirely empty corridor. She turned to look at me accusingly, her face going from a comforting, motherly gaze in only a few seconds to pure rage.

"Why would you tell him that?!"

I felt confusion rising from somewhere deep in my gut. "Tell him what?"

She took another step closer to me, her teeth ground together in frustration and her tender, elegant hands were clenched into fists. "That he can do anything. 'You'll be able to live wherever you want, go to whatever school you want, you'll live out the American Dream and live a perfect life where everything is perfect'!"

I tried not to look as surprised as I felt. My wife barely ever raises her voice above a polite, ya know, "inside voice". Some days she's so quiet it's nearly a whisper. Even when she's ticked off at you, or just trying to get a point across, she isn't very loud. Here, in the middle of the night in a hospital hallway, she jumped from _mezzo piano_ to _subito forte_!

"Juniper wouldn't be safe anywhere he goes," Erica explained, dropping back down to a _mezzo forte_, looking a bit more exasperated than angry after she had gotten rid of her sudden outburst. "He needs to stay here, in San Diego, where he'll be _safe_."

"Well…that's wrong!" I cried, raising my own voice. Erica turned away, as if she would rather ignore me. She pulled out her phone and started tapping away at it, her head lowered from my sight and her frame rigid.

"Erica, that's wrong!" I repeated, reaching up a hand to pull at her shoulder, but she moved automatically and without thought, waving me off and pushing me backwards.

I got in front of her (as if that would somehow help get her attention). "Erica, we can't keep this kid prisoner."

"We can if he's _our_ kid."

"No, we…excuse me?"

Erica lowered her phone and looked me in the eyes with a sort of fierce and determined nature surrounding her. "I'm getting an important message from…my boss."

"In D.C.?" I asked, trying to glance at her phone screen, but she yanked it away a second later and put it into the pocket of her jeans.

"Yes. In D.C. There's some important business I need to attend to over there." She told me, her expression dark.

"O-okay." I stumbled over myself trying to find the right words. Here she was having just made this big proclamation about how June needs to stay with us and we need to protect him and stuff, and then out of nowhere she tells me she's going to the other side of the country. In any other situation, I wouldn't have put up with that bullcrap, but I think I was just so shaken from the events of that day, that I didn't really question it.

"I'm leaving on Sunday," Eric told me, her face dark and serious. "I know, I know, that's still a little while away, but I need you to promise something in advance: While I'm gone, make sure Juniper never contacts any of his 'friends' outside of school."

I rubbed my shoulder. "Isn't that a little extreme?"

"I won't have any of his peers intoxicating him with their ways. _Clearly_ he wouldn't have taken these risks if he wasn't among his peers. He needs to be kept away from them for his own safety."

I couldn't help but feel like all this was a bit sudden. Red flags about this plan were just popping up everywhere I looked, and I knew that Juniper wouldn't really appreciate being kept inside all day, but…

Erica is the scientist of the family. And I decided not long ago that Erica should be the one who decides what's best for the family.

So I nodded. And Erica smiled.

oOoOoOoOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**23:49, Friday, May 15**

**San Diego, CA**

I stared at the crumpled picture of myself in Alice's drawing. I ran my thumb over the creased lines and gazed at the thin, graphite lines. It was unrealistic, superior to my actual looks and current morale, too good to be anywhere near true, and at the moment, it was all I needed.

_I wish I could be you,_ I thought to the more confident, stronger, and better version of myself in Alice's portrait. _I wish I can make that face and mean it. I wish that a side of me like this existed. And I wish that if he did, he would be able to be free. Make his own decisions. Find himself in his own way. _

But instead of being this version of Juniper, I was lying idle in a hospital bed, waiting for other people to decide how my life was dictated. Lying idle and being a nobody. I stared at the ceiling, dormant and calm on the outside, but wanting to scream on the inside.

This is my life. This is how my life has always been, and this is how it will always be. Stuck, and in a fishbowl.

Yet, when I looked to my side, I had a moment. Something inside of me snapped in a sort of epiphany.

_Maybe I _can _be him,_ I thought, grabbing my cell phone. _Maybe I can make my own decisions. _

I stared at the chat room I had just opened up, at the previous messages me and my friends had sent each other.

_It's going to cost you. Your secrets will be out there, and you won't be able to get them back. What if they tell someone else? What if they think you're insane? _

I sat there for a few minutes, considering sending a message that could either begin a new life for me or ruin the one I already have.

I decided I would take my chances.

oOoOoOoOo

_Juniper, 23:56: Hey, I need to tell you guys something._

oOoOoOoOo

**A/N: Hey, wowo, it's been a while since I've updated. It took me a while to figure out where I was going with this chapter, but I guess I like how it turned out (also, yes, the liquid diet thing was one of the first planned things for this story, but I forgot about it when I was writing that THEY WERE HAVING TACOS FOR DINNER WHYYYY). Your Real Pirate Roberts forgets stuff sometimes, and I did, I made a mistake. I'm very sorry (also happy Mothers Day everybody!). **

**Also, I don't know if any of y'all have noticed, but the day this was posted is May 11, which is the day the story really got started (not the day I actually posted the chapter, but the day it takes place on), so yay! **

**Anyways, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	12. Texts: An Interlude

**Texts: An Interlude**

**15:35, Tuesday, May 20**

**San Diego, CA**

_Vanessa, 15:35: So. _

_Vanessa, 15:35: I've been meaning to talk to you guys for a while. _

_Vanessa, 15:35: I'm pretty worried about what Juniper told us the other day. _

_Vanessa, 15:36: You know, the hallucinating underwater thing, where he supposedly remembered something. _

_Juniper, 15:37: I don't like this use of the word 'supposedly' _

_Vanessa, 15:39: I've been doing some research, and I think you may be experiencing these visual and auditory delusions based off of your current psychosis. _

_Poeu, 15:40: exsqueeze me are you calling my boi crazy_

_Vanessa, 15:40: I never once called your 'boi' crazy, for your information. _

_Vanessa, 15:41: Why do people even spell it like that? _

_Juniper, 15:41: Guys, my psychiatrist is like, giving me threatening looks_

_Juniper, 15:42: So stop texting me_

_Vanessa, 15:42: I have a good reason. _

_Vanessa, 15:43: I'm very concerned about you, Juniper. _

_Juniper, 15:45: Why_

_Vanessa, 15:48: It is clear that your disconnect with reality is growing. Of course, hallucinations can occur with seizures, but they're usually brief, and essentally only visual. _

_Vanessa, 15:48: *essentially_

_Poeu, 15:50: i just googled what psychosis is and it says "psychotic disorder" run_

_Poeu, 15:51: she up here thinking junebugs crazy_

_Poeu, 15:52: like i get ur concerned an all but like slow ur roll_

_Vanessa, 15:53: Wait Juniper, I thought you were supposed to be staying at home for the rest of the week. How are you at your psychiatrist's office? _

_Juniper, 15:53: He's at my house_

_Alice, 15:54: Wow they make house calls?_

_Juniper, 15:55: I guess_

_Juniper, 15:56: Vanessa, I know I'm not crazy_

_Vanessa, 15:57: I never said you were, Juniper. _

_Vanessa, 16:00: It's just that none of what you have been telling us actually lines up with any diseases we know you have, so there must be something else wrong with your brain. _

_Juniper, 16:02: Vanessa please, I'm not really supposed to talk to you right now _

_Alice, 16:03: But I thought the psychiatrist was PART of the problem _

_Alice, 16:06: With the whole 'are you happy here' spiel _

_Vanesa, 16:08: Juniper, I know you hate admitting this more than anyone else, but you're not well. _

_Vanessa, 16:12: Auditory and visual hallucinations can easily be related to having seizures, but having something as elaborate as this is clearly a sign of some other issue that is occurring mentally. I hate to be the bad guy in this situation, but I'm a realist, Juniper. You can't just chalk this all up as something from your past without even considering the idea that you're not alright in the head. _

_Juniper, 16:15: You think I haven't already considered that? You think I haven't spent countless hours looking in the mirror and wondering if I was crazy? _

_Vanessa, 16:16: I'm sorry, Juniper. I'm not trying to call you crazy, I'm just asking you to look after yourself. _

_Juniper, 16:17: Okay. I get it Ness. Thank you for your concern _

_Alice, 16:18: You sure you don't want me to come over_

_Juniper, 16:18: Mom told me specifically I can't have any friends over_

_Juniper, 16:19: Sorry guys_

_Poeu, 16:20: But I thought your mom was in dc doing her sciency business stuff_

_Alice, 16:21: What she doesn't know can't hurt her_

_Juniper, 16:21: No, I'm sorry_

_Juniper, 16:22: I don't want to disrespect my mom's wishes. _

_Juniper, 16:23: Plus, she is the medical expert of our family. At least, according to Tabs_

_Poeu, 16:25: so I can't see you in person until NEXT monday_

_Alice, 16:26: Wow he did something right with the punctuation in that sentence, maybe all is not lost for that boy_

_Poeu, 16:27: excuse me alice i'm texting with my peers i have reason for speaking casually_

_Poeu, 16:29: i have better grades than you fight me bish_

_Alice, 16:30: Geez don't get so defensive _

_Alice, 16:32: Rude_

_Vanessa, 16:33: Egads, guys. _

_Vanessa, 16:35: Look, we're not even supposed to be texting right now, Juniper's psychologist wants to talk to him. _

_Juniper, 16:35: No it's okay he left already. _

_Juniper, 16:37: I'm not feeling all that great I'm actually just going to go lie down. _

_Juniper, 16:37: I'll talk to you guys tomorrow _

_Vanessa, 16:38: Goodbye. _

_Poeu, 16:38: bye_

_Alice, 16:39: Bye_

_Poeu, 16:40: love you_

_Poeu, 16:40: sweet dreams_

_Poeu, 16:41: don't get kidnapped by mermaids_

_Vanessa, 16:42: Poeu!_

_Poeu, 16:43: fine. bye. _

_Poeu, 16:45: -_-_

oOoOoOoOo

**This is just the Pixar short before the actual chapter, it's somewhere over in that direction. -**


	13. Chapter 11: Friends

**Chapter 11: Friends**

**Poeu Soun's POV**

**20:12, Tuesday, May 20**

**San Diego, CA**

Juniper is a rare find.

I know what you're thinking. 'Ah yes, the dumb sidekick friend finally gets a chapter'. And to be honest, you're right. That's all I've ever really amounted to. It's been that way since grade school.

Now, let me give you a bit of backstory: in third grade, I was redistricted, so I wanted to show up to my shiny new school to become friends with everyone. Pretty daunting task, right? But in third grade you think everything is possible.

And over the next four months, I did just that. By winter break, everyone knew me as 'that super-cool-social butterfly boy that has a pretty-damn-awesome-Phineas and Ferb lunch box'. Okay, maybe not exactly that, but it was pretty similar. I felt accomplished, like, 'wow, okay, now everyone's going to be my friend and I'm gonna be super popular and stuff'! I thought life was going to be just stupendous, and my parents were going to be just as proud of me as they were of my older sisters (one, a genius already set up for Harvard, the other, a little bit of a local celebrity because of her amazing singing talents).

…

Yeah, you can see how well that turned out.

By having beef with nobody, I simultaneously had beef with everybody. For example: if I was friends with both the popular mean girls and the nerdy boys who are shoved into lockers, and they're having a war, then I'm a target for both sides, even if I'm not involved whatsoever. I was quarry no matter where I went, and yet, everybody knew me as the same social butterfly kid from earlier that year, even if I was more of a limp, dying moth than a butterfly.

So, that's why for the next six years, I was sort of the, how do you put this, _Tour Guide_ of the school. If a new kid comes along, I am the one who helps them fit into a clique, then watch as they never speak to me again, because I don't want some poor soul to end up like me; floating awkwardly in between having no friends and having everyone be my friend. I'm basically a walking backup choice for group projects.

Some people are nicer than others. Vanessa. Alice. Two of the greatest people in the entire thunderdome that is our SoCal high school. They've both got a ton of crap to deal with at home, so I tend to try and not put any of my problems onto their plates. Instead, I'll be the comic relief friend. The one you can't remember the name of, only that they're Asian and they like dying their hair a lot.

Oh, and don't count on my parents being proud of me either. I can sew, play guitar, and I've studied six different languages (although I've only just picked up Cantonese, so no flame if I'm a little shaky in that), and it's literally been like three years since I've even had a real conversation with my dad, so…

Now along comes Juniper, and let me tell you that as the official Clique-Finder of our school, he immediately struck me as different from the rest of the crowd. Coming back from winter break and discovering that gem of a human being was like winning the lottery.

When I first saw June, he was standing at the water fountain before Homeroom started, poking all of its buttons to see what they would do. His eyes were wide open, gazing at the water fountain with the same sort of sweet fascination of a child. I wasn't really sure of what to think of him. At first I thought, 'well, maybe he's a foreign exchange student from a country where they don't have water fountains'.

So I approached him. If he saw me, he couldn't care less. He just kept pressing those buttons.

_Nice water fountain, huh?_ I asked, and his head jolted up, like a wild animal that had been startled. After analyzing me for a moment, he pointed vaguely at the water fountain.

_For drinking?_ He asked, eyebrows creased. _Drink?_

Now for a moment, I thought my theory had been correct. He clearly didn't know what the fountain was, or what it was for. I nodded, leaning against the corner of the lockers casually. _So where are you from?_

_Desert-hospital-place. Home. Car. All the places. _He nodded vigorously after saying it, a finger gun pointed at the water fountain, as if this explanation made total sense to him. _School has the everything._ A dog that I had not noticed before, attached to a leash wrapped around his wrist, started sniffing at my shoe, as if worried I would insult her owner. When she decided I was fine, she sat down and gave me a huge puppy grin.

Meanwhile, I was off to the side wondering if this kid was sane. I mean, he didn't look different from anyone else, but I read somewhere that mad people look just as normal as everyone else. I probably sound really mean for thinking this, but he spoke with a near _perfect_ American accent, so even if English wasn't his first language, it sounded nearly impeccable. Plus, I don't like dogs. They're gross.

The new kid seemed to sense the awkwardness of the moment (or perhaps his attention was just caught by something else, you can never tell with Juniper), so when I finally had thought of what to say, he had wandered away. A tiny bit frightened of this new kid, I tensely walked to Homeroom, unconsciously glancing everywhere as I went in case he would pop out at me or something. By the time I got there, I had started scrolling through my phone and lost myself in the world of the internet. I just wanted to move on with my day and pretend the encounter had never happened, maybe hope to clear things up with him tomorrow, start on a different foot. But still, something at the back of my mind was nagging at me to talk to him.

That nagging finally was quenched around lunchtime. It was a nice day, so Ness and I were headed outside to go eat on the bleachers. There were barely any clouds, so not a whole lot of shade, but the wind was blowing pretty strong. We sat down and just started chatting like we always do, about pointless teenager stuff. Gossip. What's hot around school (besides me, of course). Well, _I_ started talking about that stuff. Vanessa's never been into it. Something about her mom thinking it will 'ruin her', or something.

_You are literally the most goody-two shoes goody-girl ever, you beautiful beech,_ I told her. You may have figured it out by now, but that word is sort of a compliment in my book. However, a certain someone (TheRealDreadPirateRoberts) absolutely insists that I not use the real word, so fine, whatever, be like that.

_Egads, Poeu, someday you're going to get in trouble for calling someone that._ Vanessa murmured quietly, the way she always does, fingering the crust of her sandwich.

I tried to continue with our conversation from before. _Remember Kris Nylon's party at the beginning of Spring break last year?_

_I'm surprised _you _remember it._

_Hey, I may be a bad beech, but you know how I am about drugs. Nu-uh, none for me. _True story. Mind altering drugs are for wimps too afraid to face the real world. Don't do drugs, kids. _Anyways, you were so good at that party, you didn't even eat or drink anything with sugar in it so you would get a full ten hours of sleep that night. If that doesn't say good girl-_

_Yeah, and I still got in trouble for going to the party, so let's not talk about it._ Vanessa snapped, readjusting her glasses.

So that's basically it. We're talking. We're eating. We're having a grand old time. And all of the sudden, Kari Hee starts screaming at somebody at the top of her lungs. Well that's no surprise, ever since Ignacio Ortez scared her back at the fifth grade Halloween Dance and she shrieked so loud there was a crack in the trophy case glass everyone's known her as The Banshee. But this time was different. She was actually screaming coherent words.

_That is so effing gross! God, you're disgusting!_ Kari's voice carried across the entire back of the school, from the courtyard, to the bleachers, to the distant lacrosse field. Everyone and anyone who was eating outside could hear what she was saying. And whatever the debacle was, it was drawing quite the crowd.

_Well dam Nessie, if we wanna stay up on the latest gossip, we gotta go see what's going on over there,_ I said jokingly, but on the inside, I knew what was going on over there. I knew _exactly_ what was going on over there.

When we reached the ring of people near the exit to the school, forcing our way through cell phones and backpacks to the dismay of many, we could see what was happening. Jeremy Nix, one of the most popular boys in school, was standing in front of the new boy with a cruel and unforgiving expression on his face.

Now a bit of context before this next bit; earlier this year, our school had a rat problem. I know, gross. They tried to keep it a secret for a while, calling in exterminators during the weekends, but eventually they just gave up and started putting rat traps everywhere.

So that's why it wasn't too strange to see the new boy we now know as Juniper standing there with an injured rat clasped in his open palms, his expression desperate as he went from person to person.

_Help? Help it?_

Everyone in the crowd either burst out laughing or shied away making sounds of disgust. Several people were narrating their own videos in the background, setting up their own explanations of the event for when they eventually post it on whatever their social media platform of choice is.

Jeremy stepped forwards, a cocky smirk on his face. _You want me to help the rat?_ Juniper nodded vigorously, brightly smiling at Jeremy, naively thinking he had just found a friend. Jeremy slowly sauntered closer to him, and watched the boy for a moment. Then, without warning, he slapped the rat out of Juniper's hand, and kicked it before it hit the ground. Teenage boys and girls went scuttling backwards to avoid the flying rat, shrieking as they went.

Meanwhile Juniper, as he watched the rat being abused, gave out a cry of anguish and distress. He started shoving people out of the way to get to the rat, his dog barking at all of them as he did so. His breathing was heavy and his eyes were darting everywhere, giving him a scattered, messy appearance. Watching from the sidelines, I just couldn't help but feel bad for him. Something about the boy was just drawing me towards him.

So, against my better judgement, I bent over and scooped up the rat with one hand. It had a long thin gash down it's back, like it had been in a trap before. In all likelihood, Juniper was the one who had gotten it out of the trap in the first place, which is what caused the girls to start screaming. Thin streaks of blood matted it's white fur, and it shivered at my touch.

Everyone in the crowd around me shrieked and started fumbling backwards. My hand shook, the feeling of the rat against my palm making me sick, but I held my ground. Swallowing nervously, I handed the rat to Juniper, who stared at me, shellshocked. He took the rat anxiously in one hand, holding his other hand over it like a protective shield or shell. And then, without saying another word, he slunk away, glancing over his shoulder at me once. His dog trotted alongside him, happily panting at his hip.

Once I realized he wasn't going to come back, I ran inside and swiftly started washing off my hands and face with whatever crap soap the school had. I'm not a huge animal person. I'll tolerate my family's pet cats, but that's mostly because they ignore me a majority of the time. And they're indoor cats. They don't rub against my leg and get who knows what on me. However, if you think domesticated animals give me a hard time, you should've seen what kind of a freakout that rat gave me.

_Oh my effing- Poeu, rats carry diseases. You could be diseased! You could be dying! You could drop dead any second now! … Oh, good, you're not dead yet. But there could be parasites festering underneath your skin and stuff. _

I ran my wet fingers through my hair, trying to process what I had just done. I had just held a bleeding, dirty _rat_ in my hand to help some kid I barely knew. Nay, _didn't_ know. My mom would flip if she knew. The rest of the world would probably know soon enough, seeing as it would probably be all over social media soon.

But somehow, it seemed like it was all worth it. Just because I had made Juniper happy. I mean, I _think_ I did. He didn't say anything, but the look he had given me seemed pleased enough. After a lot of thought, I decided I would try to talk to him the next morning. As soon as I could find him, however. The kid seemed to disappear into thin air.

Turns out though, I didn't have to. He found me. He was sitting on the large stone staircase outside the school, twanging a branch on a bush next to him like it was a rubber band, seemingly waiting for something.

I learned that something was a someone when he stood as I approached. He leapt to his feet, clutching the straps of his backpack with a large smile on his face.

_Good day._ I half expected him to tip his non-existent hat to me as he said it. _Friend._

At that point, I kind of just shrugged and accepted it. Sure, he was hella weird. Sure, he had a weird infatuation for rats. Sure, the way he spoke was weird. But he needed someone to be with him. Humans are naturally social creatures. We crave interaction. I would be someone to interact with for a kid who apparently didn't have a whole lot of that.

_How is the rat?_

He shook his head. _Woods. Let go. Made happy._

_Wonderful. Hey, listen, have you met Vanessa yet? The chick with curly hair and glasses?_

Our friendship only progressed from there. We taught each other everything we knew. I told him about what makeup would look best with his skin tone (he never wears any, but it's really fun to practice on him), what earring he would look best with, where we should sit during lunch and what kids to avoid. In return, he told me about his life in the hospital, eventually trusting me enough to tell me of his amnesia. How he'd had to relearn English through watching nature programs, cartoons and commercials. How he'd had to take a CT scan or an MRI every other day. I trusted him with my struggles, and he trusted me with his. I love the kid to death. He's too kind to ever really hurt anybody. He just gets frustrated sometimes. And now he's going to the hospital far too often now, a place he absolutely despises.

I just… wanna protect him. He's like a baby brother to me.

So. Excuse me so I can do my homework on my own for once and pretend like I'm good at something. Maybe I'll make someone proud.

oOoOoOoOo

**Vanessa Floración-Akili's POV**

**20:19, Tuesday, May 20**

**San Diego, CA**

_A valedictorian should never do this. _

_A valedictorian should never do that. _

I just keep telling her, _I'm still a sophomore, Mom, I can't be valedictorian. That's not allowed._

And then she'll remind me of how disappointed she is in me.

_We should leave this town, get you to a better school with better people. People who are actually smart._

I don't want to move. Egads, I really don't want to move. Being the new kid would be such a scary, horrible experience. I would have to start from square one at making new friends, and I'm barely even in square two at all.

My mom's not home right now. She's working late at the office. I couldn't help but notice she does that a lot more often now. I mean, there's one good thing about it: I get to have a guest over.

I looked down at Alice, passed out on my floor in a sleeping bag. She became my friend at the start of high school, which, for her, seeing as she's a year younger than me (two years younger than Poeu and Juniper), was only this year. She comes over to my house when her Step-Father gets really angry. His anger usually tends to be directed at her and her alone. I'm glad I've never had to deal with that in my household. But then again, I don't think my parents have any feelings towards each other at all. Not happiness. Not anger. I guess my mom wanted my dad's money and safety, and me and my brothers were just sort of lame add-ons. Especially me. The daughter.

I've never had a female role model in my life besides my mother. She was the one who told me what was appropriate as a lady and what wasn't. She called all of the shots. She wanted me to become a second version of herself. No matter what I wanted, it was always her in charge. That was never really a problem for me, to be honest… until she started judging my friends. My old friends, from preschool and kindergarten. She said that she thought they were a bad influence on me. And then the new friends I brought home, the ones that I thought would be up to her standards… they weren't good enough either. Nobody was good enough for her.

And then, after I'd gone through her list of expectations, I realized there was no one left.

Poeu. He defied all of my mother's rules and expectations on her list. But I still hang out with him. I still care about him. I first made friends with him for two reasons: 1) He was lonely (like me), 2) He went against everything my mom is and was. And sure, he may not make the smartest decisions at times, but I like being around him. It just puts me in a good mood.

Juniper was originally sort of a 'connected' friend. A friend of a friend. Now that I know him better, he's become a friend of mine in his own right. A true friend. He's smart, funny. He's in a lot of my classes. But I can't help but feel worried for him. He has so many problems, and all I want to do is help him get through those problems with logical and rational solutions.

The things he was saying weren't adding up though. I did what I usually do and took my research into my own hands, to try and help June out. But just like every other thing I do, the only thing I did was screw up our friendship.

I laid down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. My friends are amazing. I love them. They mean more than the world to me. I just don't know what my mom would say if she saw me around them.

One day, me and my friends were lying around on the beach after having gone surfing for a few hours. The sun was low in the sky, a ball of fire dipped in pink and red. Night was approaching quickly and silently, and we were mere witnesses as the light was sucked down towards the horizon.

I closed my eyes, listening to the waves crash against the sandy shore and breathing in the salty spray. Southern California gets a lot of crap about being fake and plastic, but honestly, I wouldn't choose any other place to live. Basking in the sunlight and drinking it in. Living in a world of infinite summer. My dad used to joke when I was little that I was like a flower; I needed the sun to live (Even back then I knew what photosynthesis was. My mother has always made sure I was a year ahead of the classes I was supposed to be taking). He doesn't joke around now as much as he did before he got the promotion, but it's okay. I'm proud of him. And I'll always have the memories.

As I shifted my toes so they got a little bit more light from the sinking sun, I heard rustling from beside me. I opened one eye, and looked up at Alice, who was perched on a white rock, her hair in two loose Dutch braids flowing out from behind her like a pair of large black wings, her silver eyes fixed on the open ocean.

_I want to run away someday,_ she told us without context, pulling her legs up with her onto the rock. _I want to run away and never look back._

_Okay,_ Poeu said, leaning on one elbow and sitting up. _We support you._

I sat up as well, taking off my glasses to brush some sand off of them. _Um…we do?_

Poeu nodded, as if it was obvious. _Yeah. We do. _

_Stop dinking around Poeu, I'm trying to be serious here._ Alice said, her brow furrowed and her gaze now directed at Poeu.

_I'm being serious too. If that's really what you want to do, when the time is right, we'll help you out. I get it. I understand why you'd want to, beech, with a messed up family like yours. We'd be your willing accomplices. _He winked once and started braiding Juniper's hair (which is kinda pointless. It's short).

I shook my head. _I wouldn't. I would never want to put my friend in danger. _

_You wouldn't be putting her in danger. You would be a guardian angel as she willingly threw _herself _into danger. Or, well you would be guardian angel, I would be her deva. _Poeu explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I sat up onto my knees, my heart racing for some unexplained reason. _Bu-but what if you get hurt? Alice, you're not seriously thinking about this, are you? It would be idiotic, and careless, and I don't want you taking any risk. _

Alice stared at me for a little bit, blinking a few times. _It's my choice to take the risk, Nessa. And I would be safe about it and stuff. I would call you guys if I needed help. _

_Where would you even go?_

_I don't know. As far away as I can. The East Coast. Or Minnesota. Minnesota sounds nice. _

Juniper nodded, ruining Poeu's tiny braid. _I...I like East. East I would go to. But Erica says uh-uh._

Alice smirked. _Maybe you can go with me?_

He gasped, flopping his head back onto Poeu's lap and putting one hand flat over his heart. _Scandal. Oh my. _His trusty dog, Lucky, came over and started sniffing at him to make sure he's okay. With a laugh, Juniper started rubbing behind her ears. _Lucky in the East. Imagine it. She would freeze!_ (He was still kind of working on speaking at that point. It used to be really bad, but it's much better now.)

Poeu looked back up at me, trying his best to avoid the ever present Lucky. _Nessa, it isn't your decision to make. When Alice is ready, we'll help her run away. _

Alice, slightly blushing, shrugged once, quickly. _Thank you. I just… I'd rather be free and unsafe than live in a house where I can't speak my mind. Do you understand what I'm saying?_

I did. I did understand what she was saying. To the millionth degree. I sat there, blinking and gaping at her, unsure of how to answer. Growing up, I never had a chance to speak for myself in my own household. I just assumed that was the way it was in everyone's homes. Huh. I guess not.

Quietly, I lowered myself back onto the sand, wondering what it would be like if I was as brave as Alice. Would I be plotting to run away from home in my freshman year of high school, anxiously anticipating the day I finally did it? Would I have done it already? And where would I have gone?

I rolled onto my side and silently cursed for being stupid. Of course I was being stupid! I couldn't just _think_ about that kind of stuff! No, it was safer and _smarter_ of me to just not be involved at all, and never, ever, _ever_ think about running away again.

_So why am I thinking about it now?_ I asked myself, grabbing a pillow and smashing it over my head, burrowing my face into the mattress. I groaned, taking off my glasses and putting them on my bedside table.

…

It's only 8:19. If it continues on like this, it's gonna be a long night.

oOoOoOoOo

**Alice Snow's POV**

**20:43, Tuesday, May 20**

**San Diego, CA**

When I was younger, I used to imagine a knight in shining armour would come to my home, tell me that I was the lost princess of some obscure Eastern European country, and I would never have to see San Diego again. I know, I know, it's a very specific and frankly _weird_ day dream, but it was what I wanted more than anything.

You probably don't want to listen to that though, do you. You want to get back to the actually important stuff.

Have I ever told the story of how I first met Juniper?

It was his third day at our school. He still hadn't told anybody about his amnesia, so they just thought he was a really, _really_ bizarre person.

I was painting in the art room, with my earbuds in. Most of the girls in my art class liked to socialize (our teacher didn't really give a crap, in fact, most of the time she would join them), but they'd never really been all that friendly to me. I wasn't entirely sure what I was painting, but I knew I liked it.

Right before my lunch time, Poeu Soun appeared over my shoulder, quietly examining my art. He scrunched up his eyes and leaned in so close his nose was almost touching it, then backed up so far he was just about out the door. I giggled once, just as he said something inaudible to me.

_Huh?_ I asked, taking one earbud out.

_Needs more pink._

I backed up and looked at the painting. True, it was mostly black, but so was my mood most of the time. There was green and blue in the background of a sort of bird-like shape, but other than that, it was just really, really dark.

_What is it?_ Poeu asked, crossing his arms and cocking out one hip. _I mean, besides gorgeous. _

_I don't know. Whatever, it doesn't matter, it's all about the texture._ I started putting away my easel, and was just about to put the other earbud back in my ear before Poeu said something else.

_There's a new kid in school. _

_I've heard. His rat vid already went viral on Twitter and Instagram,_ I told Poeu. _I've heard you're gonna win an Oscar for your role as Best Supporting Actor in it. _I smirked humorlessly.

Poeu gave me a serious look again (a bit of a scary look for him). _I want you to meet him today. I think you'd like him. I don't have the same lunch period as you or him today, but I told him to meet you by the weeping willow tree in the courtyard as soon as third period is over. _

_Thanks for telling me about that, Soun,_ I muttered, shoving everything in my backpack as quickly as I could. The art room is pretty far from the courtyard, so I would need to hurry to get there on the dot.

_What, like you had any plans._ He said, a bit of a bitter edge on his words. He yawned as he laced his fingers together and stretched his arms high above his head, twisted his back like a cat would. _Alright, this detour was fun while it lasted. Better go tell Mr. Carmine why I took so long in the bathroom. _

_Poeu Soun, you little demon,_ I mused as I put my painting on the drying rack.

_Little I may be in your eyes, but I'm still over a foot taller than you, beech. _He reminded me, leaving the room as quickly as he arrived.

(...I honestly don't really know how Vanessa thought I was asleep this whole time. I mean, I know I'm good at fake sleeping, but I'm not _that_ good at fake sleeping.)

Anyways, I headed down the hall to my intended destination, the courtyard in the middle of the school. Overall, I was just annoyed that Poeu would do something like this to me without getting my permission, but I was also a little nervous about meeting Juniper. Yeah, I act most of the time like I don't care, but first impressions give me a bit of heebie-jeebies.

Especially when I entered the courtyard to find it empty. My brows creased together as I slid my backpack onto the nearest bench. If the kid was already missing before I even got a chance to meet him, maybe this wasn't the best idea.

_Hello? Is… is anyone here?_

Silence was the only response to my query. Feeling uneasy, I looked around the courtyard for any sign of life. I mean, it's a pretty small courtyard. It would be pretty hard to get lost in.

There. Right underneath a willow tree, her leash wrapped around a low hanging branch, a golden retriever. I approached with caution, leaning down to read her name tag.

_Lucky, huh? Well, Lucky, I wonder if your owner is-_

I never got a chance to finish my sentence. Instead, I heard a loud SNAP, then several crashes above my head.

I threw my body backwards, landing on my butt on the ground with a yelp. In front of me, the toe of my sneakers against his side, was the person I now know as Juniper, sticks and leaves caught in flyaway strands of his hair. He was marked with plenty of small scrapes and bruises, but other than that, he didn't seem to be too hurt.

Sitting up slowly, he looked at me with a sort of sad, placid grin. _Oof. That was fall. _Then he perked up (which made his dog uber excited). _You look nice!_ His dog barked in what I assume was agreement.

My cheeks heated up. _Oh- um, thanks…_ I'm not very used to boys telling me that.

Juniper flopped onto his stomach and gave me a big smile. _We eat together? We do that?_

_...Sure. _

We spent the entirety of lunch talking to each other this way, with broken sentences and strange remarks. Most girls in my school would be having none of this. They would have left eons before I did. But I stuck around the entire lunch.

Why, you may ask?

Because Juniper was nice to me. Juniper didn't have a second thought about trusting me because I looked like a nice person. He was kind to me because I looked kind to him. Nobody does that. Nobody in high school is just so open and nice to weirdos like me.

The more we started to hang out, the more I started to like him. Something about him seemed to just be drawing me in. He's funny, and he's kind, but that's not it. It's something deep down, something that hasn't been discovered yet.

Jeez…I sound just _crazy_, don't I?

I've never left San Diego. I want it more than anything. I want to get away from this broken palace where everything is fake, and the safety we're promised by our parents is a flimsy lie. I don't want to live in a place where I have to sleep over at a friend's house because I'm afraid some night that my stepfather will snap and kick me out of my own. He's wanted to for years now. Sorscha has barely put up a fight regarding it at all.

You may think that sounds like a dream to me. But if I'm going to leave, I want to do it on my own terms. I want to be stronger when I leave. I want to be able to walk out the door and _know_ that I'll be able to handle myself out there.

I just hope that the boy who fell from the tree could somehow help me make that happen.

oOoOoOoOo

**A/N**

**And, scene. **

**Not my best work. I'll admit it. These have been some pretty stressful months for everybody (plus I've had sucky internet recently), so I haven't been able to get a whole lot of work done, but I'll try and update more frequently, I promise. Thank you for the readers who have kept with this story, and I hope you have a wonderful day. If you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	14. Chapter 12: Car

**Chapter 12: Car**

**10:19, Wednesday, May 21**

**San Diego, CA**

_Juniper, 10:19: Hey Poeu_

_Poeu, 10:23: salutations bestie_

_Poeu, 10:24: look at you, being the one to start the conversation_

_Poeu, 10:24: great way to break the mold_

_Juniper, 10:25: I need you to quit my job for me_

_Poeu, 10:26: is that a euphemism? _

_Poeu, 10:27: perhaps a proverb?_

_Juniper, 10:28: No, I literally need you to go to the lactose bar and tell them I quit_

_Juniper, 10:30: My mom thinks with all the seizures I've been having, it's not safe for me anymore_

_Poeu, 10:31: wow, that's a little possessive_

_Junier, 10:31: it's not!_

_Juniper, 10:32: it's not like she's not letting me go to school or anything!_

_Poeu, 10:34: wow okay juju_

_Juniper, 10:34: Sorry_

_Poeu, 10:35: It's fine_

_Poeu, 10:37: I'll be at your place to pick up the uniform and say adios to your employers after school is over. _

oOoOoOoOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**11:26, Wednesday, May 21**

**San Diego, CA**

There was a sort of hellish pain, looking out the window at the Pacific Ocean, just a mile or two away and calling to me. The ocean carries with it a peaceful stillness that watching over your little sisters can't.

Opal's Barbie dolls were having some kind of French Revolution scenario in the room next door, causing Sunny to burst out bawling every few seconds as one by one the toys were decapitated (don't ask, she confuses me too). Tabs thought it would only be fair if she let them take at least one day off, too, seeing as I was taking so many off.

I leaned my elbows against the kitchen sink, cupping my hands behind my neck. I was supposed to be helping the little girls make their lunch, but my mind was just way too foggy. Well, foggier than normal. Plus, the idea of going anywhere near that can of tuna that was supposed to go on their sandwiches was making me sick.

_You've been feeling this way all week, Juniper, you should be used to it by now,_ I told myself burying my face in my palms and taking a few deep breaths.

It was true, ever since the whole 'flashback-woo-hoo' thing happened out on the ocean a couple days ago, I've been feeling flustered. But this time, it feels different. Like no matter how many deep breaths I try to take, no matter how many times I tried to force my mind to change the subject and end my spirals, no matter how many times Lucky's attempted to calm me down by putting her head in my lap, my mind always goes back to whatever happened out on the water.

I mean, I know what happened. It was pretty obvious. A flashback.

_But why? And how? Did I trigger it somehow, or was it just fate?_

_Well that depends on if you believe in fate or not. And honestly, you don't know _what _you believe in now, Juniper._

"Stop being so negative, brain!" I scolded myself quietly, pacing the kitchen as a fresh wave of terror washed over the Barbie Doll playing girls.

_It is _impossible _to focus._ I thought, cringing and going back to the counter. Lucky trotted into the room, looking for handouts and head pats. I half smiled and rubbed her back a little bit. Sometimes dogs, even if they don't entirely understand what you're going through, are all the support you need.

_Just...just try splashing some cold water on your face._ I told myself. _Try and settle yourself into a more relaxed mindset. _

Boom. As soon as I took my own advice - closed my eyes, splashed some water on my face - , I felt someone grabbing my wrist, pulling me into a deep trance I had experienced once before. My body went numb, and when I tried to move, I felt like I was underwater, trying to push against the pressure of the Pacific Ocean. Like I was about to drown again.

I tried pulling my hand to my chest, forcing my eyes open. Just like before, I was suddenly somewhere new.

A bedroom; okay, well, I _think_ it was a bedroom. At the very least, it was a room with a bed in it (hey, you never know, it could've been IKEA for all I knew).

The entire room was made of this kind of teal-ish, green brick. The doorway, instead of being a normal shape, was an archway, the door made of metal. Distantly, I could hear the drip of water hitting brick, and when I looked up, I could see the vague shapes of exposed pipes. The lighting was low, provided by a small circle of candles on the floor that surrounded me and the person I was sitting with; once again, their face was obscured. When I tried looking at them, it sent a brain-rattling pain up my spine and caused tremors in my mind. My gaze was forced down, and I saw what was beneath me.

Papers. One, two, twenty, possibly over a hundred papers from what I saw in a quick scan. They all had the same characters on them, the same doodles, over and over again. Whoever I was with, they and I had done all these. Something in me just knew it.

"_You know, usually Raph is the artist, but I think we're doing a pretty good job here, 5*7&21!,"_ they mused, leaning back and...well, I couldn't really see very well when I looked at them because of the pain, but I'm pretty sure they were sticking out their tongue.

Raph. The name caused a wave of emotion and pain to wash over me. My mind thrummed and screamed at me, showering me with visions of a past I cannot remember. Breaking a peanut butter cup in half with a face covered with haze. Arguing senselessly about a tv show with a nobody whose voice is layered in static. Giving hugs, saying thank you, and growing up with a person who has completely been wiped from my mind.

"_Agreed,"_ a mouth I had no control over said. "_I especially like that panel there."_

For the first time, as my younger self leaned in to look at the paper and point out what I had liked, I got a good look at what we were doing. It was a comic book. A comic book scattered out over a bedroom floor, but a comic book all the same.

"_R-really?"_ They asked awkwardly, rubbing behind their neck. "_Gee, thanks. I know the physics wouldn't really work like that, bu-but I still thought it would be cool if the Fire Princess could make the lava do her bidding too."_

In support of his friend, little June threw an arm around the other kid's neck. "_Like a volcano goddess!"_ Little me thought about it for another second, then started shaking his friend with excitement. "_Like Sengen!"_

He (I've decided my friend was a 'he'. It just felt right) tilted his head to the side a little bit. "_You mean the goddess of Mount Fuji?"_

Little me nodded excitedly. "_You know, because it used to be a very active volcano."_

My friend, who I couldn't see well if I looked at them for too long because of the pain, smiled a little bit, which I could barely see under all the distortion on their face. For the first time, past all the warped nonsense that was hiding their identity from me, I could see that their skin...was it green?

A blinding flash of what felt like lightning hit me in both temples, and I shut my eyes from the pain.

And when I opened them, the scene had changed.

It was me and the same person, I could see that much. But now that the lighting was brighter and I could see more of their body, I wasn't even sure if they were a person at all. They were entirely green, and parts of their limbs were differently sized than a human's would've been. They now wore knee and elbow pads, as well as sports tape wrapped around their knuckles. Their chest was covered with...something. A sort of round casing, almost like…

A shell.

They and I were taller. We were older. That was something I could just _feel_. But that wasn't what concerned me.

What concerned me was that we were in a smoking vehicle, both pinned under separate pieces of debris from the husk of a car (I think it was a car. It seemed quite long for a car though. Perhaps a bus?) we were trapped in. The lights were flickering every now and then, and I suddenly had the taste of blood in my mouth. Snow was beginning to fall through a hole in the roof. The two of us had just been through a terrible car crash.

Lifting my head, I looked around woozily. I realized that what I thought had been a hole in the roof was actually a door that had opened up. Whatever we were in was entirely tipped on its side. The door cheerily _dinged_ when I looked at it, giving the whole scene a dark sense of humor and irony. I kicked a little bit, searching fruitlessly for an escape for my leg, but it was stuck too tight under rubble and debris.

The other person, who was at the moment facing the ground, lifted their head and looked at me. My head burned with the sensation, and their face still obscured by a fuzzy blur, but I could still feel the concern and fear they felt in the air between us.

"_Donatello,"_ I started, my voice serious. "_Are you hurt?"_ I barely had time to register the name I had just called him.

"_76*1 3...I'm sorry. I am so sorry. This is-"_

"_Not your fault. Now, are you hurt?"_

We both looked up as we heard heavy footsteps on what used to be the side of the vehicle, the thud of boots echoing ominously around the shell of the car. Then, as we exchanged one last, horrified glance, my vision split into threes, and my ears were filled with a loud, echoing screech.

And with a flash, the memory was over.

Unlike last time, I didn't pass out. When I came back to my senses, I was sitting on the kitchen floor. The sink was still running. My temples hurt worse than they ever had before. I was feeling stunned, and maybe a little scared. Lucky, who had seen me fall, was laying her upper body on my lap and barking, probably trying to do some combination of Deep Pressure Therapy and signaling for help. However, nobody was there. The girls were too busy next door to realize what was going on. Other than that, I was alone.

I wrapped my arms and legs around Lucky as if she were a giant teddy bear. She leaned her head against my shoulder, accepting the hug as if it were nothing. With the extra support and Lucky calming me down, I felt like I was able to clear my mind a little bit and process the grenades of information the pin had just been pulled on.

Raph. Donatello. A car crash, and a comic book. These two names that had been given to me were like anchors for me to hold onto in the raging monsoon that is my mind. These two names were a part of me, a part of who I was in my past life. My 'was' was spiraling into my 'now'.

Suddenly, I felt like I was back in the hospital; entirely amnesiac, confused, vulnerable, hurt, and not sure where to go next.

_No,_ a part of me told myself. _You cannot let yourself slip back into that mindset. You cannot doubt yourself like that._

_But I-_

_No._ Thoughts of uncertainty were worming their way back in, but I wouldn't let them. Not today. Not right now.

I got to my feet, took a deep breath, and turned off the water. It was time to take matters into my own hands. It was time to stop berating myself now and start becoming myself then. It was time to answer some questions.

oOoOoOoOo

**Bridget Alon's POV**

**15:24, Wednesday, May 21**

**San Diego, CA**

You know, I never thought Tokyo drifting into the miniscule parking lot of an ice cream place could be done.

But alas, swerving into the parking lot of _The Lactose Bar_ was this disgusting, rickety, mint-y green 1990's Buick. It had probably been nice at one point, but man, it looked like it had been through at least three brick walls. Whoever was driving it parked one wheel up on the curb, crushing several marigolds and crunching pebbles as they did so.

"Wow," Nico said, raising his eyebrows in shock and what might've been admiration. "Either that dude has some serious balls, or whoever driving that car is blind in one eye."

_Sure, dude, have you looked at how _you _park recently?_ I thought a little bitterly, before turning back to the parking lot.

A teenage boy steps out of the car, carrying an apron in his hands. It's from _The Lactose Bar_. And it looks a lot like the one our missing shift-member is supposed to wear.

"Good God this kid killed Juniper," Nico said with a half-grin.

"Don't be ridiculous," I said to him, but I couldn't help but wonder what he was doing with it. Along with the fact Juniper didn't show up for work today, it was pretty suspicious.

The boy came into the store with a cocky smile on his face. His hair (which had clearly been way-overdyed, due to the fact there was a bleachy blonde color every other strand) ruffled a little bit from the pressure of pushing open the door. He was wearing a sort of flannelly-rufflely (it may have been gingham?) top and jean shorts.

"Man, you should compete in the Indie 500." Nico said with a sardonic smile.

The boy put the apron down on the counter with a sense of finality, cocking his head to the side and faking a smile. "No, really?"

Nico nodded as he approached the counter. "With your driving skills, you'll have killed half the competition before the first minute is up. Are you drunk or high or something?"

"No. You?"

"Nyet."

"Um…" I watched the two boys spar with words, never blinking once throughout the entire conversation. "Welcome to _The Lactose Bar_, I'm Bridget, what can I get for you today…" I said it more as a question than a greeting, but this conversation is so far past salvageable, basic, scripted lines are only going to fuel the fire.

"Why do you have that maniac's uniform?" Nico asked, grinding his teeth together.

The boy stiffened, and if looks could kill, Nico would've been vaporized. "Hey. I can take a jab at myself, but don't go after Juju. Got that?"

"Nobody tells me what to do, especially not someone who drives that recklessly." Nico spat, resting a hip against the counter.

"If we judged everybody on their driving skills alone, Aristotle would've been considered an idiot."

"I...cars didn't exist back then…" I said, looking between the two of them and just wanting this whole thing to end. I hate fighting. Especially between complete strangers (they can just be so unpredictable). I cleared my throat and took control of the conversation. "Look, kid, why are you here? What can we get for you today?"

"Juniper's retiring from my many extraneous decades of ice cream scooping," the boy told us, putting the apron down on the counter unceremoniously. "May his efforts to become the best ice cream scooper of all go down in history."

Nico looked up at this declaration. "'Retiring'? You mean he's quitting?" I thought for a minute that maybe Nico was surprised by this because he wanted to apologize for the things he said before. The thought warmed my heart for a half a second, before Nico threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes. "The guy freeloads then expects us to graciously say farewell when he leaves."

"I told you. Don't you _dare_ talk about June when you don't know what's going on in his life." The boy warned, a threatening edge creeping into his voice.

"Don't give me that kind of bullcrap. Like I don't know what pain is. At least I don't go moping around and dumping my issues on complete strangers."

"Well, Juniper's not really a stranger, he-" I tried to butt in and stop the argument, but something caught my eye. On the other side of the street, there was an entirely black car; the windows were darkly tinted, so I couldn't see who was inside.

There wouldn't be anything wrong with this scene, really. Black cars are pretty common. But when the passenger of this particular black car stepped out, I felt chills go down my back. His facial expression was solemn, almost bored, and his eyes were covered by dark sunglasses. His hair was combed out of his face perfectly, and his suit was almost entirely black. In the California sun, wearing that would be a questionable choice, sure, but not too suspicious, right?

These are the things I kept telling myself. But I couldn't shake the feeling that under those sunglasses, the man was staring at us.

"He what? What were you going to say?" The boy asked, as if challenging me to say something was wrong with his friend.

"I - nothing. It's nothing." The man had turned around, now facing the car again. _See? There's nothing wrong. He's just a normal dude who isn't staring at you. _

But soon I saw that while he had, yes, turned around for a split second, the man had only done so to open up the car door for someone else. Two someone else's, actually. Another man, with the same getup, and a woman, whose hair was pulled back in a slick ponytail out of her face. Same suits, same sunglasses, same taught, serious expressions.

_Well. Wonder what that means. _I tried to tell myself as nonchalantly as possible, but on the inside, my gut had dropped so low it was practically at my feet. Both boys were now staring at me.

"Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost." The boy said, but Nico was already peering over his shoulder.

"Hey, kid, how bad do your driving skills have to be to alert the secret service?"

"What?" The boy turned and looked behind him.

Nico rolled his eyes. "The secret service, duh. Have you seen any movie, like...ever?"

Meanwhile, the other kid just kept staring at the people in sunglasses. They were staring at him right back. He had this sort of disoriented expression on his face, like he didn't know why they were there, but at the same time, thought they were there for him. I mean, they were looking at him pretty menacingly.

"I...I'm gonna go home now," he told us. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but left before he could. He whirled around, opened the door, and was gone as quickly as he came.

"Well, that was...weird." Nico pondered, putting a hand on his chin like they do in those old-timey spy movies. For the first time _ever_ since I've met him, he looked remotely interested in something.

But something I thought was even more interesting: when the boy pulled out of the parking lot, the people in suits got back in their car and started following him.

**A/N**

**Wow, hey, it's been a month. I'm going to try and update this fanfiction more frequently, and also try and fit more action into each chapter. This one was SUPER fun to write, and even though it took me a long time, it was a very important one. We got not one, but TWO name drops (of characters we already know. But Juniper doesn't know them yet)! I'm also going to try and be a lot more positive about my work, cuz I'm pretty proud of this chapter. It was pretty good! **

**Also, dunno if I've ever said this, but I don't own TMNT. I should really say it every chapter, otherwise I'll forget to. **

**Thank you for the readers who have kept with this story, and I hope you have a wonderful day. If you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	15. Chapter 13: Sleepover (Part 1)

**Chapter 13: Sleepover (Part 1)**

**Poeu Soun's POV**

**15:31, Wednesday, May 21**

**San Diego, CA**

So here's the scene: I'm in my car, wondering what the hell was up with everything that just went down in the past seven minutes, when the military-FBI-type-people just start following me out of nowhere.

Now, I drive as fast as I can. I drive like it's ten minutes before rush hour and I've gotta be on time for something. I drive like it's the day the Shamrock Shakes go back into production. I drive like I'm trying to beat Juniper in Mario Kart Wii (to be fair though, despite the fact he's a dirty mach biker, he's hella easy to beat).

But my beautiful biotch, when I tell you I was even exceeding _my_ personal record when I saw that government dude coming after me.

The black car wasn't even going all that fast. It was peacefully cruising at about forty or fifty miles an hour. In car terms, they were taking a leisurely stroll through the park.

Meanwhile I was practically flying down the highway. The only thing that could've contested its speed at that moment was the beating of my heart. The drive between my home and the part of San Diego that _The Lactose Bar_ is in would've taken a half hour to twenty minutes, maybe forty with traffic. I made it back into my parent's driveway in twelve or thirteen.

Seeing as the black car had been travelling a little _under_ the speed limit, I still had a few minutes before they caught up to me.

_What does that give me time to do?_ I thought as I unlocked the front door, looking over my shoulder every few seconds.

I froze as the door opened, and a new thought hit me. _What _do _I do?_ Do I run, or does that make me look guilty of a crime I didn't commit? Do I call the police, or are those guys their boss? Do I tell my parents what happened? Would they think I was crazy, or overreacting? Or would it get them in trouble?

I snapped myself back into reality, slamming the front door behind me (good thing, too. My cat Gloves was making a beeline for the exit).

(And yes, my sister Chantrea named her cat Mittens. I thought it was stupid, so I decided to name mine Gloves as a sort of counterattack).

I hung my bag on a hook in the front hall, trying to get a hold of myself as I considered my options of what to do, when I heard a floorboard creak down the hall.

_Oh my gosh, they broke into my house already._ I reached into my pocket for the small bottle of pepper spray I always keep in there, thinking I was ready for whatever was to come.

Except I wasn't.

Punthea Soun, my mother, wheeled out of her bedroom, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She wore an expression of concern, and her goggles were pushed up onto her forehead. My mother runs a bath bomb company (check out her website link in the A/N, you'll love it), and she wears goggles all around the house to make sure no dust gets in her eyes. But it doesn't stop her hands from smelling like a beautiful mixture of cherries and peaches and flowers. She's the best woman I know.

And she's _impossible_ to lie to.

"Poeu?" She asked, wheeling herself further into the hallway. "Is there something wrong, my child?"

I deadbolted the door, my heart thumping against my chest. If there's anything I don't want, it's for my mom to be in any sort of trouble and have it be my fault.

"No." I announced, as sternly as I could, but as I said it, she did that Mom-Thing. You know, that Mom-Thing. The thing they do when they can totally tell something is wrong.

With her eyes narrowed, my mom wheeled closer to me. "Poeu, I did not raise you to be a liar. Tell me what's wrong."

I went into the living room without answering, climbed onto the back of the couch, and peeked out the half open curtains. I shut them all the way before sighing.

"I don't know, I guess I just overreacted to something."

"Okay, now what was that something?" She asked, her arms crossed.

"I- I went too far over the speed limit and thought I was being followed by a cop." I lied, climbing off the back of the couch and sitting down on the cushiony part.

A long sigh came from Mom, and for a moment, I thought she could tell I was lying again. I clenched my hands so hard that blood was starting to come out, and I held my breath. But then, she put one hand on my knee, and the weight that had been pushing against my chest lifted.

"Poeu, we talked about this. You know extremely well how dangerous driving can be when you're not being responsible."

I did. I do. My oldest sister, Mealea, was hit by a drunk driver on her way home from a late night marching band practice at the age of seventeen. She's okay now, thank goodness, and is studying Environmental Sciences at Harvard (I told you, even when I was in just third grade she was set up for Harvard), but it scared me away from alcohol for life (told you beeches in Chapter 11, stay away from drinking). And no, that's not how my mom became paralyzed. That's a different story, one I don't feel like talking about right now.

"Yes, I do know," I told her, the truth of the statement showing in my words.

She smiled and took my hands in hers. "I'm glad you told me the truth, Poeu. But you must be more careful."

The guilt that had settled in my stomach roared up again, shooting up into my throat and making my Adam's Apple bob. But I only nodded, hoping it didn't show on my face. I got up to go to my room, but stopped when I heard my mother say my name one more time.

"Poeu?" I turned, and saw my mom looking directly into my eyes, both the exact shades of black meeting.

"You know that you can tell me anything, _sa'at_."

I nodded once, my stomach rumbling with regret and guilt. "_Bah_." I closed the door to my room, blinking a few times to try and get the tears out of my eyes.

"And _som dtoh_," I breathed.

oOoOoOoOo

**15:39, Wednesday, May 21**

**San Diego, CA**

_Poeu, 15:39: So guys. _

_Poeu, 15:40: I don't want to freak you out or anything. _

_Poeu, 15:41: But there are government people outside my house. _

_Poeu, 15:41: like actual government guys_

_Poeu, 15:42: they followed me home plz guys do somethin_

_Juniper, 15:43: Where are you? _

_Alice, 15:43: Wait are you sure_

_Poeu, 15:45: *Message sent with image attachment* look_

_Vanessa, 15:45: You don't know those people are government though. _

_Juniper, 15:46: That was an incredibly dangerous thing to do_

_Vanessa, 15:48: You're not encouraging him, are you? _

_Juniper, 15:49: Come to my house. I want to see if they'll follow you_

_Alice, 15:50: I'm coming too. _

_Poeu, 15:50: but i just got home_

_Poeu, 15:51: they'll think it's suspicious if i leave immediately_

_Poeu, 15:52: and it might put you and your mothers in danger_

_Juniper, 15:54: I have a theory_

_Vanessa, 15:55: I can probably come too. I just have to sneak out or something. _

_Alice, 15:55: I can give you a ride, Ness_

_Vanessa, 15:56: Egads, Alice, you're a freshman! You can't drive!_

_Alice, 15:57: …_

_Alice, 15:57: not legally_

_Alice, 15:58: My older half-brother Walter is visiting, he has a motorcycle_

_Juniper, 15:59: Poeu, where were you when you first saw the government people? _

_Poeu, 16:01: le lactose bar_

_Juniper, 16:02: Okay_

_Juniper, 16:04: There are two other people I need to invite now_

_Poeu, 16:05: BEECH you're not inviting that crabby kid from the ice cream place are you_

_Juniper, 16:07: Whether we like it or not, they're a part of this now too. _

_Alice, 16:21: Hey Ness look outside_

_Vanessa, 16:22: Egads. You weren't kidding. _

_Alice, 16:24: I NEVER joke when it comes to motorcycles_

_Juniper, 16:24: Wait until later at night to come into the house. I want everybody else to be asleep so there's no chance of us getting caught. _

_Poeu, 16:26: sure thing chief_

oOoOoOoOo

**Nico Rodriguez's POV**

**22:48, Wednesday, May 21**

**San Diego, CA**

"So let me get this straight," Bridget said, surveying the room in front of her. "You're telling me that Juniper is an amnesiac, is slowly getting his memories back through passing out and having seizures, and that his mom doesn't want us here because...she thinks his friends are causing it or something?"

Juniper had that dog splayed all over his lap, drooling and smiling. He was rubbing her stomach, and he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. "Yeah, that...sounds about it. But don't say anything bad about my mom. She's just...trying to protect me."

"Uh-huh," Bridget said. She looked like she was trying not to be skeptical. "And...is the sneaking through the window thing new?"

"The Baronets always leave their back gate open," the girl named Alice proclaimed. She had long, black hair and pale skin, like a vampire. Only her eyes were reflective, like glass. But she only wore black...so yeah, pretty vampire-y.

Poeu (that's the annoying-bad-driving kid's name) scoffed and raised both eyebrows at Alice. "Damn girl, you've been sneaking into the Baronets house?"

Alice blushed, her cheeks severely darkening in tone. "That's rich, coming from the kid who had to sneak into homecoming when he lost his ticket. Plus, I've not been _sneaking_ into the house, Juniper has to let me in. Duh."

"Onto the property though." Vanessa chirped. She was this dark skinned, curly haired girl with huge glasses. She also, like me, seemed to believe this whole story was just _riddled_ with holes.

"Wait, let me get this straight: you don't know how you lost your memories, or why you have these seizures." I said, trying to lay out the groundwork for my question.

"That's correct," Juniper and Vanessa responded at the same time.

"So you have no idea who you were in your...past life, you called it?" He nodded. I cleared my throat before continuing. "So we don't know if you're insane or not."

An outcry from both Poeu and Alice.

"BEECH YOU BETTER NOT BE MESSIN' WITH MY BOY," Poeu warned, his black eyes flashing dangerously.

"How dare you say that? Imagine what it would be like to have everything taken from you in an instant!" Alice grabbed Juniper's hand as she said this, before pulling it away and blushing even more.

I ground my teeth in anger. "Oh, you have _no idea_. I don't even _need_ to _imagine_ it you filthy little-"

"Okay y'all better quiet down, alright?" Bridget said, pointing at the door. One of Juniper's mothers was asleep downstairs, and because he was at the very end of the upstairs hallway, he had one of his little sister's rooms on either side of him. "Because otherwise, we're all gonna be in a mighty amount of trouble."

_God, I can't _stand _the way she talks like she's some Bonne Belle Southern Dixie girl, or something,_ I thought (then again I was still getting over Alice's comment, so we'll just put these angry feelings away for now).

Juniper, this whole time, hadn't made any comments. Finally, after a little while sitting in silence, he turned to me. "Nico, can you please continue?"

I was stunned. Was this the same kid who had a mental breakdown the other day? Something tells me he would not have reacted the same way. I could hardly believe they were one in the same.

"Okay," I started, "You seem to believe you're remembering stuff. But none of what you're saying makes sense. I mean, just a few minutes ago you were talking about how your supposed memories looked...fuzzy, and the skin tones looked green. But that doesn't really make any sense. Unless…" My train of thought started wandering, back to a place I swore it would never go again. Then I shook my head, clenching my jaw shut. "Nevermind. Forget I said anything."

"Well, I said stuff like that at first, too," Vanessa started, rubbing Lucky's head as the Golden Retriever started sniffing her knee. "But… then I started to notice consistency."

"What do you mean?" Alice asked, creasing her thin eyebrows together.

Vanessa looked happy to explain. "Well, let's look at both times when June remembered. What are the two things that they have in common?" She waited patiently.

"...No one else was there for them?" Alice tried after the silence had gone on for too long.

"Though that is a good - and slightly worrying - point, Al," Vanessa said with a smile, "it's not the one I was going for. But you're on the right track guys! Think location…" she told us with an air of mystery. Once again, no one could think of the correct answer (not even Juniper, and the 'flashback' things actually _happened_ to him).

With a sigh, Vanesas caved in. "Egads guys, the _water_. Both of the times he had one of these memories, he was close to water. The first time: at the beach. The second time: splashing his face with water."

Everyone was a little speechless for a moment. Juniper's mouth was hanging open, and his face was slowly going pale.

"Just like the dream…"

"Dream? We're dealing with dream visions now?" I asked.

"Yeah, whenever June had a seizure before, he would have a dream the following night where he was underwater. The ocean is freezing, but he's just calmly floating. Then someone drags him deeper down."

"And the dream always ends with a flash of lightning," Juniper reminded her, pointing with one finger, clearly still trying to recoup from the shock of realizing it was all by the water.

"That...is weird as heck," Bridget admitted, nodding her head. "But something in me believes you."

"I didn't take the dream seriously enough before, Juniper," Alice said out of nowhere. "I just want to take the time to apologize for sounding like I didn't care about you. Cuz, I mean, I do care about you. A lot."

_Oh God, she has feelings for him,_ I thought, rolling my eyes and lolling my head back.

"R-really? You, um..._scandal_." He whispered the last word to himself, glancing down and giving me way more pre-rebellious Juniper vibes. He blinked, and the next second, he was back to the more controlled, collected version of himself. It was almost creepy how quick the transition was. "Nico, you asked how we could tell if I was crazy or not. At the moment, we have no way of telling. I'll admit it. But if I'm picking up on what Vanessa said…"

Vanessa nodded, beaming as we finally got back on track with solving the mystery. "Yes, now you see! We can try and _force_ you to remember. If we expose you to water, and you- well, I'm not quite sure how you get yourself into that state, but if it works-"

"We could keep learning about his past!" Alice finished, sitting up on her knees.

"Egads, this is exciting!" Vanessa chirped.

I laughed a little bit, letting myself open up to her a little bit more. It had been a while since I've genuinely been interested in something any of my peers had to say, even if they were insane. "What is it with the 'egads'?"

Her face blushed red. "It's...ya know, it's my thing."

Poeu nodded, pushing Lucky away with his foot. "Velma said Jinkies so Nessa could say Egads."

"Or like how Bugs Bunny says 'Whatsup, Doc?'." I said, nodding.

"Or like Booyakasha. Like my...my friend used to say."

Everyone turned to stare at Juniper, who seemed to think he said absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for a few seconds. Then, dazedly, he blinked and looked around as if he had startled awake from a nap.

"...What does Booyakasha even mean?" He asked no one in particular instead of questioning the fact that he possibly just remembered something else.

Suddenly, everyone was laughing again. Poeu was clutching his side and covering his mouth with the heel of his hand to keep from letting too much noise out. Bridget had grabbed a pillow and hid her face in it. Vanessa lost all control and seemingly just face-planted on the floor, which made everyone laugh even more (especially when the dog came over to check and make sure she was alright).

I looked around the room, finally truly smiling a bit. This group didn't seem too bad. Not too bad at -

Well. I was going to end that sentence on a happier note, but apparently not. I sat up, lifting my hand up and pointing.

"Something's off with that light bulb."

Everyone turned to look at the long strands of fairy light behind them, on their side of the circle. Clearly, they were having a hard time noticing which one I was talking about.

"The one right in the middle. It's dimmer than the others."

Juniper shrugged as if it were nothing. "Hey, ya know, it's probably fine, I can fix it sometime-"

Vanessa shook her head, looking a little concerned. "No, if it were just a bad bulb, the entire strand would go out. That's how Christmas lights work."

I got to my feet and looked at the strands of light closer. As I slowly moved closer, the light went dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer, before going really bright and inexplicably popping out.

_Okay, that makes it easier for me to take it off,_ I thought, unscrewing the glass bulb and looking at the actual light itself.

"Egads, Nico, that's dangerous!" Vanessa cried, grabbing Bridget's hand in fear.

I didn't respond. I simply pulled out my find, my hand shaking with the discovery.

"Juniper," I started. "This is a camera."

"Someone's been videotaping you."

**A/N**

**Now guys, don't expect me to update this soon again lol. I can't **_**believe**_ **I finished this quickly. If you would like to see what Poeu and his mother were saying earlier, look it up (and no, I don't have a link for her store in the description **_**Poeu**_**)! Khmer is a really pretty language (even though I don't understand it one bit, I still appreciate it). Also, yes! We finally got the whole gang together! Ya know, Alice was supposed to always drive a motorcycle in the original draft of her character, so it felt good to include that. Just something I think I needed (ps, to any mach bikers I may have insulted in the first paragraph, I too am a mach biker). **

**Regardless, thank you for the readers who have kept with this story, and I hope you have a wonderful day. If you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


	16. Chapter 13: Sleepover (Part 2)

**Chapter 13: Sleepover (Part 2)**

**Alice Snow's POV**

**22:56, Wednesday, May 21**

**San Diego, CA**

"No. No, that can't be right." Juniper shook his head, looking around the room in a sudden frenzy. Lucky, as if sensing his distress, jumped up off his lap and put a paw on his shoulder, but he barely seemed to notice her.

Nico nodded from across the room, his expression as serious as it had been this entire time, but with a twinge of worry. "I'm a photographer. I can recognize a camera from a mile away. Even this," he said, holding up the supposed camera. It was the part of the light that supposedly provided the light, twisting and turning to fit in the spherical bulb. It was maybe the size of a bobby pin.

"But...it's so tiny!" Poeu objected, raising his voice a little bit.

Vanessa shrugged, a strand of her curls that escaped the bun they were in bouncing up and down as she did so. "Well size isn't really a question in the matter. I mean, I read once they could create cameras the size of a grain of sand, so even this wouldn't be extraordinary when comparing it to that."

Juniper played with his earring, pushing it back and forth in his ear. He looked more stressed out than he had looked the entire night, his eyes slowly widening and his breath growing faster by the second, like he was going to have another panic attack.

I reached out and took his hand. He looked up into my eyes. He was shaking.

"Junebug. Look at me. It's okay. Just take a minute to refocus your mind. Imagine you're out on the ocean. Can you try that?" I asked, trying to keep my voice as quiet as possible. For a few minutes, as Juniper took deep breaths, the only thing you could hear was the ticking of the clock.

Bridget crawled over to us, dropping the pillow she was holding. She quietly wrapped her arms around Juniper, her long, puffy blonde hair swallowing his entire face in her hug. She closed her hazel eyes and simply breathed for a moment with him.

We sat there, watching them. Maybe it was rude to stare, but we couldn't look away.

"It's okay, hon," Bridget said, rubbing Juniper's now shaking shoulders. "You're going to be alright."

Juniper's voice suddenly sounded so much smaller than it had mere moments ago. "My mothers...my little sisters...they might be watching them too. I may have put my entire family in danger."

I leaned over, wrapping my arms around him too. He smelled like saltwater and...I dunno, peppers or something.

I didn't realize until that moment how much I truly loved the smell of peppers.

"Juniper, it's okay" I reassured him. "The people who are watching you can't know that we discovered them."

"Um, Alice, I hate to break it to you beech, but you're literally talking about them right now." Poeu announced, wincing as he did.

Nico examined the camera thoughtfully, leaving footprints in the carpet as he paced back and forth. "Plus, there's the question of _who_ was watching you." He told Juniper, narrowing his eyes and getting straight down to business.

"Well, there's the first and obvious choice," Vanessa started, getting up and looking at where the camera had been. "The government."

"Yes, but _why_?!" Nico prodded, running his hands through his curls.

"We can't be sure for right now," Nessa said as she continued to play with the wire. "But we know they would have this kind of technology. And then...there's someone else I've been wanting to mention. As a suspect, I mean."

"Someone?" Juniper asked, getting to his feet and making me jump. He was still crying, but he had this kind of strange fire in his eyes. He was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, but his voice was as commanding as it was before. "Who?"

Vanessa wrung her hands out awkwardly, then pushed her glasses up on her nose. "Well...Juniper...I mean this in no way to offend anybody, but I know your mom has been a bit...well…"

Juniper immediately jumped into action. "My mom?! You're accusing my mother?!"

"Juju, be quiet!" Poeu warned, whisper-shouting. "You might wake up Tabs!"

"I don't care." June said, his gaze darkening. "She basically just accused my mother of stalking me. My mother loves me! She would never do anything to put me or anybody else in danger!"

"Which is why I'm suggesting it's her doing this!" Vanessa said, raising her voice up to the same level as his. I sat there in shock, watching her. In the entire school year I've known her, Vanessa has never yelled at Poeu or I. Or anybody really. This was an entirely new side of her. Her eyes were alight with a vigor I had yet to see in them until this moment. "Who knows what lengths she would go to to keep you safe? She's already barred you from seeing us? What if cameras are next?!"

"I'm starting to think I should be listening to her." Juniper growled, clutching his elbows so hard they started bleeding.

"Alright, enough!" Bridget shouted, jumping to her feet. "If we start fighting each other, nothing gets accomplished!" She took a deep breath to control herself before marching over to the strand of fairy lights and unplugging it. "Now. Would anybody like to help me make sure none of these are bugged?"

After a moment of steely silence, Juniper nodded curtly, wiping unshed tears from his eyes.

So that's what we did for the next hour. Unscrewed every bulb on every strand of fairy lights. When we found none, we checked every other piece of technology in the room, Vanessa taking everything apart using one of my bobby pins as a makeshift screwdriver. June's computer, his phone, the overhead lights (which are barely ever used because the fairy lights are on so often). Nothing.

Nico looked at the pile of dissected technology in front him, shaking his head. "It makes no sense that there wouldn't be more. Keep searching."

I'll give him this; he was right. It just took close to _forever_ to find all the rest. A minuscule, waterproof camera hidden in an aloe plant at the side of his bed. A microphone hidden in a burgundy throw pillow.

"It makes me wonder why you guys spend so much on a security system if people can literally just sneak in here and bug your house," I joked to Juniper as we investigated this old tapestry-looking thing hanging on his wall. It didn't smell very pretty, and was way too Hippie for my taste, but the sun in the middle looked quite nice.

"If it _was_ my mom, she wouldn't even need to sneak in." He stopped looking for a minute, then turned to me. "You don't think it was Erica, do you?"

I stopped, knuckle deep in carpeting. "I'm...I'm not sure. I don't know her as well as you do, do I?"

He sighed before turning back to his work. "I guess not. I've known her- well, basically my entire life as 'Juniper'." He paused before he kept going, his voice taking on a _very_ different tone. "Three days. Three days after I woke up, Erica was called into the hospital to meet me. To tell me she was going to be my foster mother."

"Wow. That quick?" I glanced up at him. His sapphire blue eyes were intensely focused on the tapestry in front of him, checking in between every stitch and seam.

"Yes."

I paused, watching my alabaster fingers next to his deep golden ones work away on the tapestry and biting down on my bottom lip with my two front teeth. "Where was the hospital you woke up in again?"

He thought about it before answering, "Somewhere right outside Phoenix."

"Arizona? I didn't know they were allowed to call in foster parents from out of state."

"Yeah, they are. I guess. I think you have to do a lot of paperwork first, or something."

I nodded, turning my attention mostly to the tapestry, biting down on my lower lip. "Interesting. How did they know to call her in?"

"Well...I'm not quite sure. One of the doctors- I, I think his name was Dr. Mansley or something. He knew my mom. Knows her. They're friends."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he nodded earnestly. "He told his co-workers that she would be perfect for the job. Because she's...well, first of all, she's the most maternal person, like, ever, and second of all-"

I sighed, looking at Juniper. He was grasping at straws, and we both knew it. "Okay, fine. I don't know why they called her in specifically. But I don't think there's anything suspicious about it." He looked me in the eyes, his voice so quiet a whisper I could barely hear it. "She protected me when no one else cared, Alice. It's my turn to protect her now. Do you understand?"

I nodded. "Yes. Yes, I think I do." And then, just there, rooted deep into the tapestry, something hard and small that clung to it like a tick. I yanked, and though several bits of fluff came out with it and a small hole was formed (worse damage was done to poor June's room that night), a tiny, black microphone came out too. Somehow, the absurdity of me pulling a microphone out of his tapestry made him just lose it. He cracked a smile, and it grew until it became a laugh. I chuckled, shaking my head incredulously. If you asked us a week ago where we would be today, neither of us would've said investigating secret government cameras planted around Juniper's bedroom.

"Wow that conversation was _electric_," Juniper said, twisting his earrings awkwardly.

"Juju Baronet, never thought you were the kind of guy who liked puns."

He shrugged, finally seeming more at ease after his emotional outburst. "Me neither."

"Okay, guys," Poeu called everyone back as quietly as possible, examining the small pile of electronics on the ground in front of him. "Time to see how many we've got." He cringed as he looked at the tapestry on the wall, shaking his head disappointedly. "Also, Alice, seam rippers next time, sweetie."

We all sat down in the small circle with Vanessa at the helm, the electronics practically on her lap. "Okay, so we found twelve bugs in total. I was able to identify three as microphones, Nico was able to identify six as cameras, and this one we're going to assume is some kind of fingerprint reading biometric device. The rest we're not so sure about."

Juniper shivered at the thought of the fingerprint reading device. I took his hand and squeezed it silently, feeling a rush of warmth through my entire body. He relaxed slightly, letting out his breath and nodding along with Vanessa.

"Now, as we're going to forgo asking who placed them there for now, as that seems to be a rather controversial topic," Vanessa said as gently as possible, "I think we should just continue on with our original plan."

I nodded. "So." I looked at Juniper. "You ready to be drowned by mermaids, or what?"

oOoOoOoOo

**Juniper Baronet's POV**

**00:31, Thursday, May 22**

**San Diego, CA**

I rubbed my arms, trying to quell the goosebumps that inevitably came back every ten seconds. Watching the bathtub fill up, slowly, as quietly as possible in the dead of night, was making my stomach roil uncontrollably. Bridget sat on the side of the tub, playing with the water a little bit as Vanessa watched to make sure the water level was high enough to stick my head in comfortably. Poeu was perched on the back of the toilet for some reason, possibly trying to avoid Lucky. It made him look like one of those pictures of adults trying to sit in chairs meant for children, his knees touching either side of his face (Poeu is taller than all of us, almost as tall as Erica, so it's sort of understandable). Nico and Alice sat by the door, keeping watch and making sure no one heard us (water can be quite loud sometimes).

Lucky rested her head on my lap, smiling in a sort of reassuring way. I grinned slightly, rubbing behind her ear. Throughout all of this, she's been consistently at my side. In fact, throughout my entire _life_ as I know it she's been at my side. I got her on Christmas morning and she's been there for me ever since. I hadn't really understood what Christmas was at the time, so I just walked around mumbling 'Merry Chrispses' under my breath and giving people strange and randoms gifts like a crayon or a lime I got off the kitchen counter (all I had been told was that people give presents, I had no idea what kind of presents they meant though).

But when Erica, who I didn't even know was my mom at the time, came up the stairs from the basement holding a puppy, my heart leapt.

_Fluffy?_ I had asked, sitting down on the floor as Erica put the Golden Retriever down in front of me. _Fluffy for me?_

_Yeah,_ Tabs answered from across the room, where she was sitting next to her mom (she visits during Christmas) and the girls. _That's your...fluffy._

_She's supposed to help with your seizures. She'll make sure you don't hurt yourself when you have one, or call for help or something. She'll possibly even be able to tell when one is coming. Some research has shown-_

Not hearing a word she was saying, I simply scooped Lucky up in my arms like a stuffed animal and rocked her back and forth. _My fluffy!_ I held her in front of me and beamed, before pulling her back into an enormous hug. _I love you!_

From then on, Lucky became a sort of permanent support system. Sure, she's not the bravest dog ever (she's scared of most car rides), and sometimes she chews on my slippers and socks, but I love her. I really do. Out of the people I really, truly trust, she's the one who I know for sure won't betray me.

_I'm glad dogs don't have to worry about things like betrayal,_ I thought as Lucky put her front paws on either one of my knees. _They can just live their lives without the fear of being watched. I'm glad Lucky gets that life._

"June?"

I looked up. My arms were wrapped around Lucky, who turned to Vanessa, panting and smiling. Nessa was now standing in front of me, her glasses misty and her expression a mix of nervousness and excitement.

"I think we're ready."

Trying to swallow my fear, I knelt by the side of the tub. Quietly, everyone gathered around behind me.

"Okay. Here goes nothing." I said, plunging my face into the water. It was cold, freezing cold; not my ideal temperature, but necessary to remember.

However, it took me about ten seconds to realize something was off: nothing was happening.

After a minute or two (I lost track of time underwater), I came up, took a deep breath, and tried to process what had happened. Or rather, what _hadn't_ happened.

_Okay. It's okay. Just try again._ I took a deep breath before sticking my face in the water. Once again, nothing happened. I waited even longer to come up now, and when I did, Lucky began licking the water off my face, smiling and oblivious to the severity of the scenario.

Meanwhile, sitting on my knees, staring into the water in front of me, I felt this familiar sense of dread. My gut started climbing into my throat and my hands felt all twitchy. My chest ached and it felt like someone in my brain turned the dial that controlled all my senses up to 8000.

"Juniper? You good?" Poeu asked, putting one arm around me. He knows the signs I'm getting a panic attack just as well as I do.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," I lied, staring into the water and trying to ignore the thin layer of sweat dripping down my face. "I - I've just never tried to do this on purpose before." I turned to face them, looking into their concerned faces. "You know, every time I've remembered, I didn't know it was going to happen. What if because I'm actively _trying_ to make it happen, it won't?"

Vanessa seemed to be absolutely crushed that her plan wasn't working. Everyone seemed to be shell shocked by what I was saying - except Nico. He nodded as if he completely understood what I was saying.

"So what you mean is that it came as a surprise?" He asked, switching from sitting cross-legged to being on his knees.

"Yeah, yeah, exactly." I said, trying to control my breathing and looking at him directly rather than the group as a whole.

He nodded slowly, with a small, smug look on his face. "So. You better thank me for this." And all of the sudden, he lunged forwards, pushing my face underwater.

I mean, it was a weird strategy, but it _worked_. The cold, dark water swallowed me, washing down upon me and numbing my senses. At this point, I was almost used to the sensation. I spun around, searching for a light source, something from my past and distant life to latch onto. But I didn't have to. It found me instead.

A hand locked around my wrist, and with a sudden jerk, they started to pull me down into the depths of the ocean in my mind. I didn't struggle. _I'm ready,_ I thought to whatever was pulling me down. _I'm ready to know._

_You can't be ready unless you let go and accept the truth you cannot face._

In my shock, I opened my eyes prematurely. It responded?! It talked to me?! The voice in my head flipping talked back. And not in the way that it usually does. The voice sounded different. More solid. Like a real person.

I was so stunned that I was taken aback when the person sitting next to me started speaking.

"_Dude, don't take this offensively, but this show is kinda stupid. Why can't we watch a hockey game or something?"_ I looked over to the side and felt my heart stop.

_Casey Jones_. That's who was sitting next to me. I don't know how I knew. The name just clicked with the face. The freckles, the many missing teeth, the messed-up dark hair. He blankly stared at the television, clearly bored out of his mind. But that didn't matter to me now. What mattered to me was the fact that not only a) this was the boy who had been attacked by a mutant at the docks, but b) this was the first time I had ever seen someone's face in a memory unobscured.

I looked at the tv. It was a cartoon that he was talking about. I watched for a while, recognizing the shaky waves of grainy filtering over the show, the voices of all of the characters coming back to me. On the inside, I smile, but I can feel my past self droop a little bit, probably from Jones' comment.

"_Hey, come on!"_ Someone from across the room called out to us. In the vast, almost-chasm like area, another figure was approaching. He walked with a confident gait, strutting over to us like he was the king of the world. However, that was all I could see before my mind exploded with blistering, hot, searing _pain_. His face immediately blurred, and I would've screamed if I could've.

I could see a vague outline of him sitting down next to me, throwing an arm around me in a sort of jovial, almost fake manner. "_8%74#1 may be a bit of a bizarre, fanatic garbage fire when it comes to this show - but he's _our _bizarre, fanatic garbage fire."_

My past self grinned, snuggling up to him. My eyes burned at the sight of him, the agony dulling my senses. "_Thanks dude, I-."_

"_Don't push your luck,"_ he grumbled all of the sudden, pushing me away. I smiled as I rolled my eyes and looked back to the tv.

"_Okay sure your brot-"_ his voice glitched out, the same syllable being repeated over and over again like a computer program. I tried to cover my ears, willing the terrifying sound to go away, but nothing changed. Then he resumed as if nothing had changed. "_...be a fan of the show, but that doesn't change the fact that it's dumb. And totally unrealistic. Like, I've seen aliens, and they look nothing like that."_

"_Okay, so technically, as the entire universe hasn't been explored - as that would take roughly two hundred and twenty five trillion years - we can't be certain that there isn't some kind of sentient life out there similar to the core crew of -."_ His voice glitched out, jumping all over the place, just as Casey's had done mere moments before, however this time, he didn't even get a chance to start the word. Someone else was coming up from behind, and a fresh wave of pain came over me. If I could've screamed, I would've. Whoever it was slid into the spot next to Casey Jones, and this time, instead of just the one person getting blurry, now my entire vision

was getting fuzzy.

But when they spoke again, my ears picked up on something. "_However, seeing as it takes Casey two hundred and twenty five trillion years to do something as menial as brushing his teeth, we may never know."_

As threats were exchanged behind me, I realized how they were familiar. _It's them. The person from the crash. The person from the comic book making. Donatello. _

"_Aw yeah, I love dinosaurs!"_ Another new voice shouted out as they bounced over to us.

A slight cough came from Donnie, and he turned to look at the person who came to join us. "_Mikey, what do dinosaurs have to do with anything?"_

"_They were on the earth twenty-five trillion years ago. Duh, Donnie, you're supposed to be 'the brains' of the team. Guess like it's up to me, Dr. Brain-einstein, now."_ He jumped to his feet, racing with his arms out in front of him to another distant door. "_Now let me go play in the lab for once!"_

Lab. That word sent a parade of shivers down my spine. Lab. Lab. Lab.

Lab.

…

I didn't like that word.

Someone grabbed our new friend by the back of the...shirt? I...I _think_ it was his shirt.

He flung him backwards, causing the newcomer to land on his butt, right on my other side. "_Just watch the show before Donnie has another temper tantrum."_

"_Oh, you wanna talk about temper tantrums, Raphael?"_ Donnie asked jokingly, poking Raph in the back of the neck. They continued on like that for a while, laughing and smiling, and my past self joked alongside them, but on the inside, I felt something troubling eating me alive. It felt like watching a horror movie and knowing which character was going to die next. I felt like something wrong was going to happen.

_Or maybe it already has happened,_ my brain suggested, and all of the sudden, the vision changed.

Snowflakes were showering down on me - my past self, that is - making me partially blind to the fist that was about to hit my face.

I stumbled backwards, heavy amounts of blood spewing out of my nose. The world was a white tornado of winter, the chill of the weather attacking my skin. I was shaking, but I couldn't tell if it was from the wounds covering my entire body or the chill of the air. I couldn't focus. I couldn't move. I could barely breathe.

But I had to fight. Something in me knew it.

And my past self did. I looked up at my opponent and took them out with a spinning back kick to the head, knocking them over with a single strike. They slipped on the ice and made an almost comical attempt to get back up.

Others were attacking though. All of them were wearing black and blue, with a shiny, red reflection where their eyes should be. Both my past self and I thought it was unnerving. They all held massive guns, which glowed a pale, icy blue when loaded.

Still I charged them, pulling something out from behind me. A weapon.

A pair of weapons.

A pair of _katanas_.

I wielded them with skill and fearlessness, slashing cuts on the arms and legs of enemies, never going for a lethal blow. They stumbled backwards, their bodies just blurry, inky blotches in the clean white snow.

I looked around as I fought, trying to figure out where I was. It was a city, with tall, looming silver buildings in the distant skyline. They looked like castles compared to the rooftop I was fighting on. Then again, it was significantly higher than most of the buildings around us, only visible by their snowy white peaks. Stars glittered above my head, almost entirely covered up by the enormous black clouds of the blizzard.

_Stars…_ I thought as my past self jumped on top of a ventilation system to achieve the high ground in the fight. My knee flew into their face, and I got to my feet with a near perfect shoulder roll, the form a little hazy because of the snow.

_Why are there stars? If this is a city, wouldn't there be too much light pollution to see stars?_

My train of thought was interrupted when I felt a hot, intense pain on the back of my neck. It spread like a drop of food coloring does in water, blooming outwards and making my head feel fuzzy. I felt limp and ragdoll-y, unable to move anything except my fingers. While still recovering from the shot to the neck, as I tried to regain my footing, I fell on my side, greeted by the unforgiving cold of the freshly fallen snow.

"_21$89!"_ Someone called out my blocked name from the other side of the rooftop, but I didn't respond.

Two of the masked figures looked over me, and one of the chuckled. "_If there's anything good the mafia has done for this country, it's make Mutant-Hunter-Weapons."_

"_Sir,"_ the other one called as she turned to face the man clearly in charge of the whole operation. "_Tell Dr. Wardarc we've apprehended one of them for her project." _

"_That's great, but what about this one?"_ Someone shouted from the other side of the rooftop, and when my eyes flitted up, I could see someone fighting. Someone with a bo staff, olive green skin and what looked like a shell on his back.

_Mutant._

_Donatello is a mutant._

_But...the weapon affected me, not him. _

He spun his bo staff like helicopter blades over his back before thrusting it into the face of the masked man in front of him. Lightning quick, he turned and swiped it under the feet of the people who had been sneaking up from behind. The long strands of a purple bandana flew out from behind him as he fought, and though I couldn't see his face, I could sense his passion and fury just from his body language.

The guard laughed a little bit, before raising his gun. "_Take it out."_

"_No,"_ I said, trying to shake my head a little bit. My past self started moving again, tightening my grip on my katanas and stumbling to my feet. The snow landed on top of me, but despite the fact it was only tiny droplets of crystallized water, it felt like bricks were hitting me. "_No!"_

I lifted my head and my swords, but the cold had started to overtake me. My teeth chattered, and when I looked down, I saw that I had left a very impressive, very scary amount of blood in the snow.

Donatello soared in from nowhere, and supported me with one arm while holding his staff in the other. "_7^53#? It...it's going to be okay."_

But it wasn't. Throngs of other masked figures were pouring out of a truck down below us, filing up the fire escape one by one.

The masked figures in a semicircle in front of us all lifted their guns, except for the one in the front. "_She only needs one."_ Then he lunged forwards, grabbed Donatello by the shoulder and hurled him off the side of the building.

"_Nooo!"_ I shrieked as I fell to my knees, watching helplessly as he fell into the alleyway below. My entire body began trembling with rage, and I leapt to my feet, shaky, but still with purpose. My swords were pointed at the enemy in front of me, and even though I couldn't entirely understand why, I knew that my past self was angrier than he had been in a very long time.

_This is where it goes wrong,_ I thought to myself. Some part of me knew that things were going to get a lot worse.

"Kakatte koi yoi_!"_ I cried, outrage lacing my voice. I pointed my blades at the enemy, waving one of them as a gesture of bringing on their attack.

_No,_ I told myself, not really knowing why. _Don't provoke them further._

My past self looked down into the alleyway below, and quick as lightning, slid underneath the legs of the guards I was fighting.

"_After him!"_ One shouted, her voice getting more distant by the moment.

_Of course,_ I thought with realization. _I was leading them away from Donatello._

_But...why would they even want him in the first place? Or me, for that matter._

Whatever questions I may have had slipped discreetly from my mind as I was suddenly yanked out of the water by a near frantic Bridget.

I stared at her woozily, then looked around at everyone else. She coughed, and with a dry-sounding voice announced, "Um...we thought you'd been in there too long."

oOoOoOoOo

**Vanessa Floración-Akili's POV**

**1:027, Thursday, May 22**

**San Diego, CA**

Our dear friend Poeu Soun was still clearly scandalized by what Nico had done to Juniper.

"You can't just do that!" He whisper-shouted from across the room, where he had gotten one of June's blankets and laid it out on the floor. He flopped down into it and rolled himself into a cocoon. "Like, dude, we all wanted him to remember, but that was just a little much, you know?" Seeing as how we were possibly being stalked by the government, we decided it would be best if we spent the night at Juniper's, dispersed at school in a couple hours, and then came back to discuss possible theories of...well, whatever was going on.

"It's fine, Poeu," Juniper said, his voice present but his gaze distant. He'd told us everything about the vision, and to be honest, none of us had any idea what to make of it. I mean...mutant hunter weapons? Swords? The mafia? And what did that kid Casey Jones have to do with anything?

Alice seemed to have less pressing questions on her mind. "Why are all the people in your visions named after Italian Renaissance artists?" I suppose being the artist she was she would've been the one to notice it. "Like, Donatello, Raphael…." She trailed off as she grabbed a pillow and laid down on the floor without even bothering to take a blanket.

Juniper jumped upright, pointing at the bed. "You can have it, you know. You are a guest."

Alice blushed profusely, biting down on her upper lip with her two front teeth. "N-no, no, it's okay. Really."

Juniper looked a little hurt and confused. "O-okay?" He got up, rubbing his hands together nervously, and locked the bedroom door.

_Perhaps I should be worried about being locked in a room with someone who we can't be certain is mentally stable, but honestly, I just feel a little safer,_ I thought, snuggling into the warm, fluffy, emerald green blanket I had snagged off of one of June's chairs. _I mean, we know he can fight, and I like to believe that he's a warrior for good, or something like that...egads, what am I doing? This is crazy!_

I looked around the room at everyone else settling into their sleeping positions, and smiled as I realized that I was having more fun than I'd had in years. Sure, this was insane, possibly even on a dangerous level, and I was terrified, but this was a good group of people. Despite the fact I didn't know them well, this was a group of people I knew would have my back.

Nico scoffed and flopped down on the bed as he lacsidazily kicked his shoes off. "If she doesn't want it, I'll take it." Juniper shrugged and laid back down in his little nest of blankets in the corner of the room, staring up at the now destroyed fairy lights. He kept fidgeting, a frustrated expression plastered on his face. After a little while, he finally spoke.

"Hey Nico?"

"Yeah?" Nico didn't even look at Juniper, just staring at the ceiling.

"What did you mean when you said you didn't need to imagine?" Silence from both ends for a couple minutes. Juniper continued. "Earlier you said you didn't 'even need to imagine' what it felt like to have everything you've ever known taken from you. What did you mean?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, Screwy?" Nico snapped, barely moving from where he was on the bed. Juniper, sensing defeat, rolled over. There was an awkward silence for the next minute or so. Finally, Nico sighed and gave in.

"I was born in New York City. My-"

"Really?!" Bridget said a little loudly, jumping up from where she was near the door. It was almost like her hazel eyes were glowing. "Have you ever been to Times Square or seen a Broadway show?! Have you- sorry." She blushed when she realized nobody else was gushing out their love for the city. In fact, Nico seemed to be giving her the evil eye. He exhaled, and continued.

"My mom grew up in a penthouse overlooking Central Park, the same one as me. Her father, my _abuelo_, made billions from oil production. My _abuela_ hated him for it and moved out here. She thought it was the wrong kind of business.

"The thing about my parents' relationship is that it wasn't a very long one. My father runs a technology company in London. He came to New York for a business meeting, met my mom, and only told her about his wife and daughters back in the UK once she told him she was pregnant. It's fine, really. He pays child support and stuff. I've never met him. I've never even seen him in person. I'm just the embarrassing stain on his report card he's trying to ignore. My mother raised me alone in New York. She did pretty good at it, too.

"Until the Kraang attacked. When the Invasion happened, my mother was turned into one of those...Kraang-things. My _abuelo_, too.

"From January to April, I survived on my own in an apocalyptic New York. Everything I've ever known changed. Almost no one else got away. Those who did were so desperate, so afraid…" he trailed off, still staring at the ceiling. "You would never believe the things I saw people do to stay alive…The things _I_ had to do..." He coughed and continued.

"When the Invasion miraculously ended, I thought things were going to return to normal. And for a while, they did. But my mom wasn't readjusting the way I thought she was. She turned to drinking. Every time I came home from school, she would be sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of vodka in her hands. And if it wasn't vodka, it was some other hard liquor. It got to the point where she was so drunk most nights, she forgot I was there. And then, it was just me on my own trying to survive all over again.

"Eventually, someone else at my school found out. Told the authorities. They sent me out here to live with my _abuela_. I've only been living here for a couple months. But it feels like it's been years since my mom went to rehab." He coughed a bit, then shrugged. "Yeah, that's it."

Bridget sat up, her puffy blonde hair all zig-zaggy after having been put against a pillow. "Nico, I'm sorry. I never knew."

"It was supposed to stay that way, too," he said before yawning and rolling over so none of us could see his face. "Okay, well, good night." Even after his breaths fell into a light, easy pattern, his shoulders falling and rising calmer than I had ever seen him before, I had a feeling he was still awake.

I stared up at the ceiling, pulling my hair out of its ponytail. _I don't blame him. If it were me, I don't know if I would ever sleep again._

But it didn't happen to me, and within mere minutes of my head hitting the pillow, I fell asleep.

oOoOoOoOo

**3:19, Thursday, May 22**

**San Diego, CA**

I woke up with my glasses askew and my mouth half open. I lazily opened my eyes and checked my watch before realizing I was drooling more than Lucky.

I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my orange and white striped t-shirt, hoping nobody had noticed, before I realized most of them seemed to be asleep. Alice was lying on her side, facing away from everyone, but she's a known insomniac, so I wouldn't be surprised if she was still awake and was just trying to hide it. Nico seemed to be actually asleep now, and snoring, so that was good. Poeu had grabbed onto June's hand at one point, possibly in his sleep, possibly while he was awake, but I had a feeling I knew the reason why: Juniper was curled up in a ball and hiding his face, and seemed to be trembling a bit in his sleep.

Propping myself up on one elbow and rubbing my eyes, I smiled to myself. Poeu's smarter than he pretends to be, especially with people. He has it down to an exact science, the way the world works. Comforting others isn't really my strong suit.

Which is why I felt so nervous when I heard Bridget crying right next to me.

I leaned over her, watching tears roll down her face, seeping through her closed eyelids. I wasn't sure what to do; _poke her? Ask her what's wrong? Hug her? Get her some water?_ When she opened them, as if sensing someone, and saw my face hovering over hers, she gasped and sat up so quick our foreheads collided.

"Ow!" I yelped quietly, smacking one hand to my forehead. Unbelievably, that did nothing to solve the problem.

Bridget rubbed her forehead at the same time as wiping tears off of her face. She gave me a small, sheepish smile afterwards, her eyes still puffy and red.

"Hey. Sorry about waking you up," she whispered, pulling her knees up to her chest.

I shook my head frantically, grabbing her hands. "No, no, it's fine. You didn't wake me up. I just happened to be awake."

"Oh. Okay." We sat there in a very awkward silence for a little bit before Bridget spoke.

"Look, I know it'll seem like I'm pitchin' a hissy fit about this whole thing, but...I'm scared. I've never done anything like this before. Not just for myself, but for my older brother, my twin sister, my parents...who knows how many lives are in danger now."

I shrugged, trying to look for a positive light in this whole thing. "Well, we don't know anyone's _lives_ are in danger-"

Bridget laughed a bit, and I saw her tucking a puffy lock of hair behind her ear in the dim light from the moon. "The government is stalking us. I'm pretty sure that means danger."

"Touché," I admitted, leaning back on my elbows.

"I just don't know what I'm doing. I feel like I'm _supposed_ to be here, but I also feel like bad things are going to happen. Like, really bad things. But I feel like leaving would be even more dangerous for everybody."

I shifted so I was lying on one side, looking at Bridget. "You can leave if you want. It's your decision. You don't need to be involved in this mystery if you don't choose to be."

She shook her head, her expression now resolute. "No, no. I'm a part of this now." She smiled abashedly, her cheeks going a pale pink. "I'm sorry, Vanessa. I only met you tonight and now I'm dumping all my emotions on you like a table after a school day."

"It's fine," I waved her off. "I'm just glad you got all of that out of your system. If you don't, you can explode, and honestly, that's the last thing any of us need."

Her face blanched, and she had this weird, taken aback expression on her face. It made her look like a funny sort of bird. "I really hope that's just an expression, girl."

I laughed a bit, before holding a finger up to my mouth. "It is. Now shhh. It's time to try and go back to sleep." Then I laid back down on my pillow and watched the moon, longing for the sunlight to return.

oOoOoOoOo

**4:07, Thursday, May 22**

**San Diego, CA**

I blinked awake groggily, feeling a distinct crick in my neck.

I sat up without having really awoken, still in that weird sort of fever-dream state, and saw Alice awake, sitting up and drawing by the light of the moon. At nighttime, she truly looked like a small spirit sent down from the cosmos, her snowy skin missed by the moonbeams and her dark hair framing her face like it was woven out of shadows. Her thin lips and freckles were more accented in light of the earth's natural satellite, and when she looked up, her grey eyes were like true, small mirrors. She tilted her head to the side a bit, smiling softly.

"People are much better muses when they're sleeping. They look so much more peaceful. Go back to bed."

Dazedly, I did so, my head limply forced onto my pillow by the force of gravity, and soon, sleep caught hold of me once more and dragged me into it's deep abyss.

oOoOoOoOo

**6:34, Thursday, May 22**

**San Diego, CA**

"Vanessa, get up."

My eyes snapped open, and I sat up, looking around the room. Pale rays of dawn sunlight, a layer of humidity that had settled overnight, and Nico Rodriguez crouching on his haunches at my bedside (well, I say bedside, but it was really just the floor).

I fumbled, trying to fix the positioning of my glasses for a minute or two. "What's going on?" It took me a moment to realize that most of the others were gone. It was just Nico and I sitting there in an empty bedroom.

No. No, the doorway was open, and its frame was definitely not empty. In it, stood two figures: Juniper, who was looking at the floor, his face torn between anger and embarrassment, and Erica Baronet, who had wrapped both of her arms around him in a very tense hug. She had a calm ruse, but I could sense the iciness that was hidden under her mask. She nodded once, tightening her embrace of Juniper.

"Good, you're awake. Now, somebody tell me what the _hell_ is going on here."

**A/N**

**And...done! Well, for this chapter that is. **

**Guys, this story is one year old on October 16. And cannot say how grateful I am that you followed me through all this! The story will continue, and it will only get better. I love it dearly, and I'm excited for what's to come (a lot more action). I'm going to continue to write (it's one of the things I love to do most), and I hope you'll continue to read. Thank you, thank you, **_**thank you**_**! Now, as always, if you choose to leave a review, only appropriate ones please. This is a clean site, very much unlike public restrooms. Thank you all very much for reading, the next chapter will be up soon. Keep in touch! **

**3**

**-TheRealDreadPirateRoberts**


End file.
